Norwegian Jaerhon

[New chicken family]

I am Norwegain - so of course when it came time to pick out breeds we bought a Norwegian Jaerhon.
But what I don't know is - how good of an egg layer are they?
All I know is that their eggs are white....

Anybody have one that can tell me?

We live in Wisconsin - I figure a Norwegian chicken should be able to handle Wisconsin winters!!!

Thanks!!
Solvei

 

[The Birdmaker]

I live in southern Norway where the most successful norwegian breeder of standard size Jærhøne lives. There is also a bantam version in two colors: brown-yellow and yellow-brown. I have no J myself, being a sultan breeder, but it's a popular chicken.

 

[Dr Bjorn Netland]

One of the interesting things about jaers its that the entire US population came from one very small group of imported birds, so all are very closely related genetically. Despite this close inbreeding they remain hardy, efficient layers of very large eggs, with no evidence of the potential problems a small gene pool can produce. I would think that the original breeder must have been very selective of his breeding stock.

I (my nephew, that is, before coming over to visit me) acquired the hatching eggs from a gentleman in the Bergen (Norway) region who at the time allegedly was the president of the local poultry club. According to my nephew, he said that had three young cockerels in with his pullets in his breeding pen, though my nephew has no clue about anything chicken related. I get the idea to get some eggs following a recommendation from my friend Dr. Hans Schippers in the Netherlands (he had previously arranged for the shipment of hatching eggs from top breeders of Barnevelders, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Welsummers (and I can't recall the fourth breed) to Lowell Barber and me), and I knew nothing about the breed at that time. 10 eggs hatched out of the 12, and 1 runt was eliminated but the remaining 9 (3 males, 6 females) were very healthy and grew out very quickly to start laying at about 19 weeks of age. These birds were divided into 3 breeding trios: 1 light variety, 1 dark variety, and 1 mixed (1 dark male, 1 dark female, 1 light female), and I set eggs from all pens the following late spring (the original ones were hatched around early January). Out of this offspring, I shipped a breeding trio to Lowell, one trio to poultry judge Dennis Thompson in Iowa, and one trio to the late Ron Nelson in Wisconsin. In addition, I donated hatching eggs to some of the local 4H kids and also shipped additional hatching eggs to Ron Nelson (Ron, Lowell, and I had been trading hatching eggs of the Welsummers for several years already). I do not know what happened to the Jaers that Lowell had (though I believe a lady in Carolina was able to salvage some of them along with some of Lowell's Welsummers) when he passed away; nor do I know the fate of Ron's birds or how Dennis Thompson proceeded when he ended up in a situation in which he no longer could keep poultry--though I am pretty sure he passed them on to a reputable breeder as he thought very highly of them.
I have done my best to gather information about the breed by reading lots of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish articles from years ago and have also been able to track down some of the current breeders along with the information available through the government sponsored genetic maintenance programs in Norway. I have done my best to maintain the breed in my own flocks, and in addition to keeping an unmanageable number of cockbirds from the various groups I have "bought back" chicks from Sand Hill as well as Ideal on three occasions. The chicks from Ideal have been very uniform in type and are still reasonably good layers, so I have used them to cross with my own as well as birds from Sand Hill. Moreover, I have some birds in my layer flock that are a production type white Leghorn/Jaer cross, and I am considering mating a couple of these pullets to a Jaer cockbird this spring to see what comes out of that mating because the LH/Jaer cross pullets have been superior layers during their first laying year.
When the decision was made by the Norwegian government agency to try to save their own livestock land races, their selection of breeders for the Jaers was based on meticulous record keeping (health, production) without much attention to conformation characteristics. The show specifications came later. The most prominent avian scientists available were engaged in the government controlled breeding program to address concerns regarding inbreeding and productivity, which I believe explains the relative robust nature of the breed as it has been handed down to us today. The Jaers were used in commercial egg production into the 1970s, and a select flock was then established by a government run gene bank to make birds/eggs available to hobbyists and small scale farmers in the future.
I hope this rambling note may throw some light on the history of the breed here in the US.
Happy New Year to you all.

 

[Dr Bjorn Netland]

I think it's essential that breeders keep laying records (trap nests or whatever) in order to breed from only the top layers. Additionally, it might be a good idea to introduce "new" blood from time to time, either from another breeder or from one of the (2? 3?) commercial hatcheries. Conformation breeding could be put on the back burner until we have a sufficiently large base here in the US -- except the ones that are obvious sports. (I have kept some of the sports in order to breed them as layers without any regard to conformation, and I will select only for productivity, size of eggs, and vigor in that group this spring). Eventually, breeders who have birds that might fit the standard description (remember, though, productivity in my opinion should be an important part of that) might go for APA recognition. Would be kind of fun to seem them accepted by the APA.

 

[Roosterfry]

So I have been frustrated not more information about this breed is written in English. I have been working on translating some Norwegian articles about jaerhons into English. The author of the following article is unknown to me and I have no way of verifying this information. But to me I found some interesting tid bits of useful knowledge. In this translation I did not change much so the words are jumbled and some sentencing do not make sense. And some words that when translated actually are comical. See if you can get something helpful from this rough translation enjoy! I'll be working on getting more as I can.

Norwegian Jærhøns is the only Norwegian poultry breed and originates from the Norwegian country chicken type as it was before it began to import poultry breeds from abroad in 1850. The term "country chicken" refers to breeds that have long adapted to local conditions in a geographic area. Such conditions can be climate, vegetation, soil, farming and diseases. The result is chicken that is good at finding food if they go out there and that's resistant to disease. They are also usually good egg layers with good maternal characteristics. Jærhøna is certainly prolific, they lay great many white eggs (80% of the commercial production), but unfortunately there are not many lines that go broody any longer. This characteristic has been bred out in favor of a large egg production.Many of the old land races is now unusual and are in danger of dying out. Fortunately we have in Norway a gene bank for poultry by Hvam high school. This ensured jærhøna and a range of other racial chickens for the future through systematic breeding. In this way there is no acute danger that jærhøna will die out, but it is still important that hobby breeders across the country take care of the breed as well. In that sense, it seems as if jærhøna and the other old land races are brighter times ahead. The trend at present seems to be that people want to "return to roots". Small farm, organic farming and conservation of old breeds seem to be in demand like never before! For jærhønas part however, it was close. The old breeds were outcompeted by foreign breeds and eventually it was far from the old country chickens. In 1916 it created a control breeding of Jæren hønseavlsforening and Stavanger amts country catering banqueting. This station collected hatching eggs of what would later be named jærhøns and Norwegian country chickens. The eggs came from different directions, but most seem to have come from the station's first host, Karl Håland. He had already bred this strain for several years and although he had his birds from a woman from Ogna named Inger Lisabet Bridge. She had self-sustaining breeding of this type for thirty years. This means that the type of line drive started going back to the early 1880's.The tribes that were collected at the station was put together and from this material was chosen later a cock (No. 1) and a chicken (No. 26) as the exclusive basis for future breeding. We talk then about a quite exceptional, documented, inbreeding for almost a hundred years! This is quite unusual and should be for what I have learned about genetics lead to inbreeding depression in the form of reduced egg production, increased chick mortality, smaller individuals and other negative things but it does for some reason. How this may have to I do not know, maybe they were just extremely lucky with the committee and chose two animals turned out to be a lucky kombinasjon.Dette small sample, however, has had a consequence: there before which was a very varied type of chicken looks today quite similar. The breed comes in two colors, light and dark, but the old Norwegian country chicken was much more varied in appearance. It existed in many colors from very light to very dark, some had spring peaks and ridge came in many varieties. In this sense than the old version probably pretty much on the island chickens and genetic tests have also shown that jærhøns and Icelandic chickens are closely related.Jærhøns was a time used in commercial egg production, and it was in this context, selected for high egg production. This has also contributed NOK that they are still known today as good egg layers. It has also been hinted that another race, Italians, have been mixed into the race at a time but this has been refuted by other sources. What are the facts we will probably never know. However, what is certain is that some things distinguish them from the old country chickens. For example, they have a large crest. This would be a great inconvenience for a hen kept in a cold barn with no heat source. Under such circumstances it would have frozen the comb and this would in turn led to high mortality. This I have even experienced although I have heat lamp for chickens in winter. Why jærhønene have large comb is a mystery to me unless I have no idea if this means that something else is mixed in at some pointThis was what I had on jærhønas origin. It's probably time to say something about my own experiences with them now. Compared to other races I've had, they are very lively and agile. Many dislike this because it means that they often rush up to each other so that they flap around when you go into the hen house. I can agree with this but I do not think this is a big negative trait. It is still out on the yard I think they come into their own. They are elegant and attractive when they go out. Sometimes they take up like a small flygetur too, because they fly very well so you must have a roof on the chicken farm if you do not want to let them go free. I think it is important that the race is held in relatively spacious premises due to his active personality. It may also be wise to put some effort in activating the hens in the hen house, for example, bread, dried herbs, dried berries and the like. This is especially true in winter when they are not so much out there. Chains they will in fact find the mass bully who eggspising and the like. In my experience, jærhøns more likely than other breeds I know to do this, which probably is due to their high activity level.As the literature says they are quite resistant to diseases but I have had some cases of koccidiose. This is an intestinal disease caused by blooms of a single cell organism in the gut. This has been on chickens that have gone along with the chicks of other races and I think jærkyllingene may be slightly more susceptible to this disease. It is also worth checking butt on young chicks as they tend to "go urban" back there. This can be easily fix by that you wash the chicken in the butt with lukewarm water.Incubation of jærhøns has given good results with me so I expect that most jærhaner doing a good job of seeds eggene.En special things I have not mentioned so far is that the chickens of jærhøns is gender-setting from day one. Dark hen chicks are dark brown with a small bright spot in the neck. Stephane chicks have a larger spot, often covering the majority of the head. Light hen chicks have a yellow base color with brown longitudinal stripes along the back. Young chickens are uniformly yellow. This is a great advantage for those who want to buy chickens as they do not have to buy a bunch of cocks but for me that sells it at a disadvantage as it is I who will be sitting with all the roosters ...Do I say it will keep me, you could write page after page about the breed but a decent impression of the breed you get until you get some yourself. I can certainly recommend jærhøns for people lively chickens that are good eggleggere, and who feel a certain nostalgia by holding an old Norwegian breed.

 

[aurissavannahs]

Actually i just found out from Tim Shelton, author of The Genetics of the Old English Game Bantam, that Jaerhons are both autosomal (Pattern gene Pg + Dark brown Db) barred and sexlink barred(B/B). The combination of both barring genes causes the soft irregualsr barring on the Jaerhons. The sexlinked barring (B/B) works like Gary Dean stated and the gold gene (s/s) makes the difference in the down color even greater so it is easy to tell the sexes apart at hatch. It all stands out well on the dark down from the e locus what ever it is. I had been thinking the dark Jaers were eb and the light Jaers ebc? maybe not. Will be interested in finding out any new information. Keep up the good work Gary Dean. I would love to work with you if I can help in anyway.
Kat

 

[free burd]

thank you to everyone for this thread.
i have read it for many months - the jaer seems to good to be true in some ways.
a 3.5# hen that lays a large egg, mostly feeds herself by foraging and 'friendly'. impossible.
well, i have read everything i could find on the bird for over a year and kept quite a long file of information
including translations from articles and forums in Norway. still seems to good to be true.

the last and final question i have unanswered is the actual lay rate - per year, week or season
or compared to other breeds you have had. i don't care how you say it or what you say about it
but i would like to beg your first hand experience on this question.
the best i could settle on is a Norway publication that lists 160 per year - this WAS a good
layer in the 1920's when the jaer was popular.

is that it ??? cause that then makes this bird just a great novelty and not really a valuable
utility/production homestead bird.
(unless its economy, vigor and size reducing qualities where crossed into - say - a california gray or white leghorn...)

kindly settle this for all of us interested in this impossible to believe bird.
it was asked a few postings ago and no reply was posted. i'll settle for a weekly/seasonal rate.
anything.
(or even, if you have jaer and the lay rate doesn't matter to you - i'd like to hear what you have to say about that)

oh, i have limited space with RICH forage and will not be killing/culling birds so i have to do it right the first time.
(a lightweight calm as possible layer breed(s) who turbo-forage)
_______________________________________________________________________________________

also, thank you to the brainy genetics people who are trying to figure out the jaer - much appreciated.
no one in Norway says anything about it...

to me it always looked like crele/campine but you guys haven't brought that up in your postings at all...

are you aware that research in its homeland links it genetically to the icelandic?
like the icelandic the jaer likely at one time had a larger spectrum of charicteristics before the
govt. program isolated this layer out of the country hen population.
they do pop out of the breed frequently, especially barred(gray) and silver campine feather patterns.
as for the sand hill hatchery 'flame', no one in Norway has ever seen this pattern according to posts on forums.
looks as if a dedicated breeder could let her/his flock cut loose and re-establish itself as a landrace.
which would be cool.

thank you everyone.
robert braun [email protected]

 

[Amyable]

I've had them try to crow at 3 weeks. Truly they sound like mice.

 

[JerryR]

Hi, I was wondering if some of you could tell me your opinion of this Jaer rooster (actually he's just a little more than 10 months old). Does he look like he has good conformation to use for breeding? He's quite lightweight under those feathers. Not a glamor shot but he did pose for me! Thank you.

 

[alpinefarm]

This is fun that we have lots of new Jaerhon folks up and coming!



I will be offering Jaerhon trios and quads within the next month. I would consider shipping chicks approx. mid-June (when they are big enough to fly). Delivery within NW Colorado and also the Front Range will be possible in late June.

My flock produces occasional "white" pullets, which I am assuming are the "light" variety. Originating from Ideal, but I've been breeding for about 6 years and have introduced new (Ideal) stock in the meantime, rather than intertwining the line-breeding too closely. The color-sexing at birth is quite consistent, which is a great "plus" of the Ideal efforts.