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You should keep her if you have laying hens. My Bresse hens are fantastic layers of huge tan eggs. You can get on average 250+ a year from her.

Spring hatch in full swing. However due to predation I have one foundation hen and one foundation Cockerel, I have 10 younger pullets that are a month or so from full lay. My foundation pullet is laying huge light brown eggs almost daily so by June I am hoping to have 50-100 birds on pasture...

An interesting article for those wanting to know if this bird truly is worth the hype! http://comfortbites.blogspot.com/2011/07/poulet-de-bresse-is-it-worth-hype.html

If anyone is in North Carolina and will be at Chickenstock in Lincolnton on the 18th of May I will have a select few additional Black and white Bresse Chicks to sell. I'm placing most of my stock on pasture this month but need to raise some money for fencing. Let me know if you are interested...

I have five in a separate cage that are looking remarkably well, eating, drinking and no worse for wear. That doesn't mean they weathered the process without pain. Chickens have a remarkable ability to recover from injury. This Saturday I will remove them from the hospital cage and put them in...

Thanks for your kind words. I think that the issue here is the bottom line vs reality. Americans have been so acculturated to the Cornish cross that it's going to be an uphill battle to get them to value a tough, skinny rooster, young or not. Fact is we can barely give them away these days...

A cautery can be used. I think in my case it's a matter of the learning process and I genuinely was sorry to have lost the birds. What is interesting is that the first bird we did was the oldest and it went quite smoothly.

I appreciate your concerns as they are mine also, however I am not convinced that the birds suffer an extreme amount, however I doubt that the operation is painless. Billions of chickens are caponized without anesthesia and or pain control throughout Asia and roosters do not go to waste. As a...

This weekend we attempted our first caponizations. The weekend was productive if hard on those boys that we chose to caponize. The upshot of the whole experiment for me is that for the Bresse we should be caponizing at about 16-18 weeks. We attempted to Caponize 10 birds, 5 of them were...

Sounds like a plan in the making! I also was thinking about getting some goats so as to have a supply of dairy to mix with the corn for the finishing. I'm trying to source dairy for the birds right now and it is probably going to be pricey unless I can make a deal with a local grocery store...

To answer your question, at this point I don't know how I am going to finish them. I had thought to market them in the future as a high end pastured chicken. In my opinion only restaurants are going to want to purchase a chicken that costs more than $4 a pound. My original plan is to start...

I hope I haven't stepped on any toes. I sometimes get accused of being an accuracy freak!

So here goes my opinion about the chances of your getting "imitation Bresse" Otherwise known as California Blue Footed chicken. From what I am hearing the chance is Nil, zero, nada. I say this because the breed is strictly controlled and for a reason. That reason is to maintain price point...

Can you tell how they prepared the bird? Looks like lot's of butter?

Yes they grow fast and they are big boys and girls. I'm thinking that I should have a taste of one in the next few months. As I said the boys will get caponized and put on pasture by April. The hens will be placed in breeding groups with my largest boys. I hope to have a few hundred on...

I haven't tried a taste test yet as I've had a run of bad luck. My breeding group of White Bresse was decimated by a fox. I have 2 cockerels and one mature hen left and the hen now has IB. On top of that my coop just burned down. When it rains it pours. I have about 40 Bresse Chicks up in...

Stormy, I think it's great to want to reproduce the french standard. I plan to finish a couple dozen or so in that manner as closely as I can as an experiment. I also plan to offer a few of these to local restaurants as samples. I think though that Americans simply don't have the experience...

That is a really messed up story! Thanks for the alert. There are plenty of unscrupulous folks on Ebay and elsewhere. The imagination they have is amazing. I don't have white Bresse eggs at this moment. They have not started laying for me. nevertheless I think I'll be very careful in...

Well my assumption is the same. However I believe that we can experiment w/ this breed to see if it will make a better restaurant quality broiler. The Label Rouge chickens were originally imported for the same reason. Fact of the matter is that I don't think most sustainable farmers want to...

Haven't had any for dinner yet! Can't be eating my breeding stock. I do plan to have some late winter if I can get a fall hatch. I'll let folks know as soon as I've been able to sample the birds.