South American Chickens

   

Our south american chickens are not a standardized breed. They originated from a collection of different indigenous chickens from all over South and Central America. Over the years, these different landraces of chickens got mixed, so that most were no longer true to their original types. 


For the past few years, we have been attempting to select for a few traits which are believed to be typical for chickens from one area of Mexico. These traits include rumplessness (this means they have no tail!), muffs and beard around the face, 5 toes, green or blue egg shell, and, most interestingly, a melanotic gene that turns all of the bird's skin, meat and bones dark grey! 


We have made some progress, but there is a long way yet to go. The birds vary in size, ranging from a small bantam to quite a good sized standard chicken. Many have a strong game bird conformation, which makes for nice meat carcasses. About 80% of the flock is now green egg laying. They are more seasonal egg layers than our other breeds, and very strong broodies. One of the fun aspects of working with this gene pool is the huge variety of feather colour and patterns we get to enjoy!