Can anyone recommend a hatchery for American Breese Chicks?

[SummerLilacs]

Hi All,

I had purchased a STR of 20 American Breese this spring from Murray McMurray. Wow. I have no idea what chicken this is. I'm not exaggerating, the birds are still great foragers, and through no fault of their own they are horrific. The leg colors are wrong, everything is wrong, even having large splashes of cinnamon, and dark combs...not a single one remotely resembles a Breese. I seriously don't know what that hatchery was thinking, and why they are still selling these chicks.

With Avian flu, hatching eggs might be safer, but I am concerned about the handling in the mail?

Thanks!

 

[Iluveggers]

Pics of yours out of curiosity?

 

[Kiki]

I too would like to see pictures.

 

[Dinoroar]

I’m curious too because I had noticed in their catalog picture the faces didn’t look quite right but brushed it off to weird photography or young birds or something.

My original bresse I got off a seller on eBay whose not on anymore. Their packaging was horrible (wadded up plastic bags) but the birds they hatched were really nice.

My second set of eggs I got from bresse farm in Florida they were very well packed and I got a great hatch rate but lots of curled toes. They weren’t off in any other way that I noticed (before eating them) so sounds like at least much better than the hatchery version.

https://bressefarm.com/

There is a different bresse farms (with an s) that I haven’t dealt with but there are several threads on here where people had issues with them.

 

[NatJ]

American Breese this spring from Murray McMurray.

I tried to look them up, and had trouble until I fixed the spelling.
It should be Bresse, not Breese (double s, not double e in the middle.)

I'm not exaggerating, the birds are still great foragers, and through no fault of their own they are horrific. The leg colors are wrong, everything is wrong, even having large splashes of cinnamon, and dark combs...not a single one remotely resembles a Breese.

Do they have the right body shape and growth traits? The color of legs, feathers, and combs has no effect on the way it grows or tastes. The hatchery might be focusing on useful traits instead of focusing on appearance, or they might be careless on all points, and I do not know which is more likely.


Are you wanting to eat them, or breed from them? It may be possible to begin with the ones you got, and breed toward the right qualities, but I grant that would be frustrating, time consuming, and expensive (expensive because of the feed & housing & care for lots of years while you're working on it.) Buying better birds will definitely be faster and overall cheaper, if you can find a suitable source.

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions about where to get better quality birds of this breed.

 

[SummerLilacs]

Hi All,

I had purchased a STR of 20 American Breese this spring from Murray McMurray. Wow. I have no idea what chicken this is. I'm not exaggerating, the birds are still great foragers, and through no fault of their own they are horrific. The leg colors are wrong, everything is wrong, even having large splashes of cinnamon, and dark combs...not a single one remotely resembles a Breese. I seriously don't know what that hatchery was thinking, and why they are still selling these chicks.

With Avian flu, hatching eggs might be safer, but I am concerned about the handling in the mail?

Thanks!

 

[SummerLilacs]

I’m curious too because I had noticed in their catalog picture the faces didn’t look quite right but brushed it off to weird photography or young birds or something.

My original bresse I got off a seller on eBay whose not on anymore. Their packaging was horrible (wadded up plastic bags) but the birds they hatched were really nice.

My second set of eggs I got from bresse farm in Florida they were very well packed and I got a great hatch rate but lots of curled toes. They weren’t off in any other way that I noticed (before eating them) so sounds like at least much better than the hatchery version.

https://bressefarm.com/

There is a different bresse farms (with an s) that I haven’t dealt with but there are several threads on here where people had issues with them.

Thank you for that warning, I had spoken with them, and glad I listened to myself, something didn't feel right. I posted a photo, this is really the gentlest of the lot, you can see she comes up and visits on the deck. The others have a meaner disposition.

 

[SummerLilacs]

I tried to look them up, and had trouble until I fixed the spelling.
It should be Bresse, not Breese (double s, not double e in the middle.)


Do they have the right body shape and growth traits? The color of legs, feathers, and combs has no effect on the way it grows or tastes. The hatchery might be focusing on useful traits instead of focusing on appearance, or they might be careless on all points, and I do not know which is more likely.


Are you wanting to eat them, or breed from them? It may be possible to begin with the ones you got, and breed toward the right qualities, but I grant that would be frustrating, time consuming, and expensive (expensive because of the feed & housing & care for lots of years while you're working on it.) Buying better birds will definitely be faster and overall cheaper, if you can find a suitable source.

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions about where to get better quality birds of this breed.

Thank you for your answer. It's the joy of looking out and seeing those beautiful white Bresse out foraging, enjoying life, as well as a beautiful sustainable flock, for both ascetics and taste. I have a personal affiliation to Bresse (working on those typos!) These birds will be just fine for meat birds, but, I really do want the heritage breed.

I wanted to mention that they did start to have the cinnamon colors very early, mostly on the breast and around their head, and the others intermittent on the body. Not a single one looks like a Bresse.

 

[Green Swamper]

Hi All,

I had purchased a STR of 20 American Breese this spring from Murray McMurray. Wow. I have no idea what chicken this is. I'm not exaggerating, the birds are still great foragers, and through no fault of their own they are horrific. The leg colors are wrong, everything is wrong, even having large splashes of cinnamon, and dark combs...not a single one remotely resembles a Breese. I seriously don't know what that hatchery was thinking, and why they are still selling these chicks.

With Avian flu, hatching eggs might be safer, but I am concerned about the handling in the mail?

Thanks!

I, too, purchased a STR of American Bresse this spring from Murray McMurray (34). I was so excited. They are great birds but, I too, found large splashes of cinnamon on a few, other than that I thought they looked like they were Bresse. It has been 4 months and picked out what I thought was a small cockerel to do a taste test. (It was a large hen.) When plucking it, I was extremely surprised - the skin was entirely blue/black. Very unappealing to eat visually. Tasted great though. I checked others in the flock, some have blue skin, others patched and others white.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Hi All,

I had purchased a STR of 20 American Breese this spring from Murray McMurray. Wow. I have no idea what chicken this is. I'm not exaggerating, the birds are still great foragers, and through no fault of their own they are horrific. The leg colors are wrong, everything is wrong, even having large splashes of cinnamon, and dark combs...not a single one remotely resembles a Breese. I seriously don't know what that hatchery was thinking, and why they are still selling these chicks.

With Avian flu, hatching eggs might be safer, but I am concerned about the handling in the mail?

Thanks!

Try this for a breeders directory:

https://www.ambresse.com/american-bresse-chicken-breeders.html

My understanding is the Bresse is still rather new here and many birds do not fit the French standard. An American standard of perfection (SOP) is still in process.

Good luck!