Bielefelders

[Hamburg]

Any one on the forum thought about Bielefelder or Bielefelder crosses for meat birds. A new breed still rare and expensive. Developed from welsummers, new Hampshire and maline (European bird similar in size to jersey giants). A cross with pure bred cornish I think would be interesting. I hatched out two Bielefelders this spring. Any thoughts from the group?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi there.

Lot's of peeps are raising Bielefelder as dual purpose meat birds... that's what they are supposed to be used for.

And they're auto sexing at hatch to boot!

Crosses can be fun... but WHY... if ya got something rare, sometimes it's nice to maintain it.

Ah well, there's something to be said for hatching just for fun, too.

 

[Hamburg]

I have just two right now a pullet and a cockerel, they came from the same small flock, so I am not sure I am going to breed them to each other. I enjoy both pure breeds, and crosses. I have cockerels and pullets of other breeds and crosses coming up. I have lots of diversity to play with. I brought up this point because I enjoy the threads about crossing breeds, and the ones that speculate on what the cross will result in. I expect there is nothing new under the sun. All potential crosses have been tried over time, but it still interests me. Just inserting something for folks to speculate about, if they want.

 

[Mrs. K]

I was able to get a pretty good Bielefelder rooster. A person not too far away, was going to do some work on this and paid some money for hatching eggs, got 6 to hatch, all roosters. So I got mine for cheap enough. He was flashy, but kept his hens pretty close to the coop. And the hens I got out of him really were not great layers, but they were a little meatier than their mothers.

I did really like the feather pattern that he brought to my rag tag bunch, I thought they camouflaged in the prairie better. He did take on a coyote, he lost but my flock was safe.

Mrs K