Bresse Chickens

[jasmer]

I've been doing so much research on various meat breeds so my memory might just be fuzzy, but I believe a bresse chicken is between 4 and 6 lbs at market weight, so it should dress out at 3-5 lbs. That's not bad considering the cornish X you get in the grocery store are artificially plumped with saline in increase the weight.

 

[Ozarkguy]

ive noticed a lot of bresse on auction sites almost all claim greenfire farms heritage how do i know they might be the bird bred to mimic the bresse so i am a bit suspect of the large amount coming out of california. anyone else notice the number of people who have these birds for sale seems a bit large considering they have only been available for less than two years. and the mimic bird has been out there for sale a lot longer.

 

[chicken tows]

ive niced a lot of bresse on auction sites almost all claim greenfire farms heritage how do i know they might be the bird bred bred to mimic the bresse i am a bit suspect of the large amount coming out of california

Really? How long have us breeders in California had to mimic the Bresse? A year?

If your suspicious, you better order from Greenfire Farms. Problem solved.

 

[jasmer]

I agree, order from Greenfire Farms.

It's my understanding blue feet are a trait found in a few chicken breeds, so theoretically pumping out some white chickens with blue feet and calling them bresse could happen, and may indeed account for some of the people you see on ebay and stuff.

Greenfire Farms feels legit to me, though. They even go into a breakdown of how and why they price their chickens, breaking down just how much it costs to import a single chicken, let alone a flock. I've also emailed them to confirm they don't retain any breeding or selling rights to their chickens, they just want to bring rare breeds to the states, and their Bresse prices have dropped substantially in the last several months as they are able to produce more and sell more. But everything about them just seems too legit to doubt, they just have too much positive feedback, I've only heard good things about them.

 

[chicken tows]

Bresse fresh of the BBQ. Dark spot is a sprig of rosemary under the skin.

 

[Tarps]

Has anybody been able to find a breeding standard for them? I have tried searching for "french poultry standards", etc and have not been able to find a standard online our a book that has the standard. I also asked Greenfire Farms (who I bought my chicks from directly through an auction) and have not received a reply.

 

[jasmer]

Greenfire takes a few days to get back to you, in my experience, but they will eventually.

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

W e have bresse eggs coming from a friend who just got birds from greenfire, we hope to breed and sale. Hopefully never need a cornish cross again

 

[mzstre]

W e have bresse eggs coming from a friend who just got birds from greenfire, we hope to breed and sale. Hopefully never need a cornish cross again

Fancy seeing you here! We'll have to compare methods of raising and finishing!

This breed is really getting popular all of a sudden. I bought my stock directly from GFF not too long ago, and now I have someone in my area selling chicks for $10 straight run. Makes me wish I would have waited.

 

[McButterpants]

ive noticed a lot of bresse on auction sites almost all claim greenfire farms heritage how do i know they might be the bird bred to mimic the bresse so i am a bit suspect of the large amount coming out of california. anyone else notice the number of people who have these birds for sale seems a bit large considering they have only been available for less than two years. and the mimic bird has been out there for sale a lot longer.

There is legitimate reason to be concerned. Not to cast dispersions, but the fact is that the "California Blue Foot" was a commercially available bird that originated in Canada some years back. As I understand the story the breed was created there and sold to the then president of the California Squab Association in order to protect them from destruction from the Canadian govt during the bird flu scare around 2005.
The birds were being sold by a few gourmet food product sites and I had them on several of my restaurants menus - they were of very high quality, commanded a premium price and in my opinion were worth it, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were not the "real thing". At any rate the breeding flock returned to Canada several years ago back to the original creator (or another version I heard was he recreated the strain). Regardless the original breeder Peter Thiessen passed away this past summer and his son is now in charge of the birds and looking for a buyer of hte breed stock.
Just as the French genetics have escaped and found their way to our shores via Greenfire, it stands to reason that some of the California/ Canadian birds made it to small farms in that part of the country. From the photos I've seen it would be hard to distinguish between the 2 to anyone but an expert (which I am not).
At some point an element of trust must be established between any buyer and seller and Greenfire has been selling their birds long enough for several generations to have been bred by people who bought then when they first arrived. The proliferation of breeders in CA offering "Greenfire lines" for sale is not unusual considering that CA probably has more breeders than any other state, but the opportunity for fraud based on proximity should be considered for anyone buying from an unknown source - not that that isnt true regardless of where any product comes from especially in the era of e- commerce.
Personaly I'm a fairly trusting individual and tend to think chicken people are better and more honest than most!
Here are a couple of links with some more info.
http://www.pouletbleu.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Foot_Chicken