Chicken Breed Focus - Bielefelder

[kristalb]

I have Bielfelder hatching eggs coming in February! Hoping to get a beautiful rooster to have fertile eggs and a little predator protection added to my flock!

 

[Abesinger]

Any for sale?

 

[farmfrau1977]

Thanks Jeff. At what age did the rooster start to show interest? I have 4 buff Orps just a little older and the hens started to lay about 4 weeks ago. The rooster is crowing but not interested in the girls.

 

[jeffsmith13]

Mine start after the girls around 6 months . If the young cockerel is around mature hens they figure it out pretty fast . He'll do the shuffle and a mature hen will squat for them. A good boy is patient , they are way to big to be aggressive with the ladies and luckily the Bielefelders are gentlemen . They are the Uber chicken.

 

[farmfrau1977]

My Bielefelder are 5 months old today so hopefully in another month he'll show some interest. The buff Orp. roo is with young girls. I have an older blue Orp who has been a real disappointment. Someone suggested that he is too big to breed successfully. The eggs from this year had only about a 20% fertility. He seems to have little interest in the girls and when he does the mating doesn't look very successful. He's my first standard rooster. My bantam Amerecauna are active with the hens year round and the hatch rate is about 90%. Here's a picture of him. I have nothing to compare him to other than the hens and he is much larger but I assumed that was normal.

 

[Bine]

Hi farmfrau, have you tried to trim the fluff around the "hot spot"? Sometimes all the feathers are in the way and a young rooster has enough problems to keep the balance and most hens are not that cooperative when a older or more experienced rooster is around.

 

[farmfrau1977]

Thanks Bine. I did do that this summer but I hadn't done it in the spring when I was trying to hatch eggs. He's not a young rooster he's my oldest one. Will be 3 in the spring and he seems to be more interested in food than he is in girls. A couple friends have said I should send him packing but I don't cull my chickens and I hate to give him away to someone who I know will make soup out of him.

 

[Faraday40]

I highly recommend Bielefelders the gentle giants. The grow fast & lay relatively quickly for their size. (My orps take 8-9 mo to lay & the Bieles only took 6 mo to make their 1st egg.)
The hens are docile, friendly & VERY CURIOUS. They followed me around making all kinds of funny noises. (almost like gossiping about the other hens) The roo quickly became our favorite. He was a big gentle boy, always alert, & got along well with his orpington "brothers." The 3 cockerals worked as a team to protect the flock. The Biele was the best hawk spotter & never went inside the run until ALL the hens & pullets were inside.




Bieles can look cute or very grumpy depending on the camera angle.







As you can see our young cockerel was HUGE. This is my DD holding HER baby. The Bielefelder hatching eggs were part of her poultry science project.

Here's our 1st Biele pullet egg.


Our Biele Boy grew very larger, very fast. Then when he was 6 mo old, he just died. No other chickens died or became ill. He had no external injuries, and we never did find the cause. Because we could no longer breed them & had to reduce our number before winter, we decided to sell off the pullets. I still miss them, but we hope to hatch them again someday. One of the people who bought our surplus Bielefelders, still thanks me & sends me pics of his beautiful flock. Perhaps he will want to swap some eggs in spring 2016. (BTW- My DD hatched 9 chicks out of 9 eggs. 7 females & only 2 males. We only wanted 3-4 Bieles, so we had to sell the extras.)

 

[PacMan1582]

I'd like to have some of these. Anyone going to have hatching eggs available?

 

[farmfrau1977]

They come up on ebay quite regularly. Check under Hatching Eggs.