Chicken Breed Focus - Penedesenca

[sumi]

The Penedesenca is justly popular for its very dark brown eggs, with the hens laying around 200 eggs a year. They are an interesting exception to the rule that birds with white earlobes lay white eggs. They also have a unique comb type called the carnation comb or king’s comb, which looks like a single comb but with several lobes or points in a circle in the rear. In the mature hen, the comb will usually flop to one side. They come in four main feather colors, Black, Crele, Partridge, and Wheaten.

They originated in the Spanish region of Catalonia, in the area around Vilafranca del Penedès, from birds native to the region. The attempts to standardize the landraces into a breed began around 1928 when it was feared that the type would go extinct due to birds imported from other regions. Efforts of various groups lead to the black Penedesenca being the first standardized, in 1946, and work continues to this day. They were imported into the US around 2000.

They are a very active breed that is often quite flighty and do well free ranging. They are very predator aware, and they will roost very high in trees. They can be aggressive in a flock, so do best with birds of similar temperaments. The hens will go broody and the hens are very attentive and protective mothers. They are very heat tolerant, but their large combs are subject to frostbite.

Details:

Breed purpose: Eggs
Comb Type: Carnation
Broodiness: Occasional, very good mothers.
Climate Tolerance: Very heat tolerant.
Weight: 6-8 lbs.
Egg Productivity: Good
Egg Size: Large
Egg Color: Very dark Brown.



Pic by @karenerwin


Pic by @DirtyAnkleAcres


Pic by @ChickenCanoe


Pic by @Hangtown Farms


Pic by @Hangtown Farms

BYC Breed reviews:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/penedesenca

General breed discussions & FAQ threads:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/289025/calling-all-penedesencas-owners-breeders/0_20
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/212387/empordanesa-penedesenca-who-has-them/0_20


Do you own Penedesencas? Are you a Penedesenca breeder? If so, please reply to this thread with the your thoughts and experiences, including:

· What made you decide to get this breed?
· Do you own them for fun? Breeding? Some other purpose?
· What are your favorite characteristics about this breed?
· Post some pics of your birds; male/female, chicks, eggs, etc!

We have a bunch of other awesome breed-focus threads for you to enjoy. You can see all of them here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-project.975504/

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I'm a Penedesenca breeder.
Here's one of my current flocks.

You can see how early they can be sexed by comb size.




Most of my birds free range but some are in rotated paddocks.





A nearly ideal chick. Would be better with slate feet like the legs are but that isn't always present.














I've had over 30 breeds of chickens in my life. I had Welsummers that laid beautiful eggs and I wanted more dark layers. With research, I discovered only Marans, Welsummers, Penedesencas, Empordanesas,and some lines of Barnevelders and Langshans laid dark eggs.
I thought that Marans were fairly common and since I'm not common, I wanted something more unique or rare.
Wheaten, partridge and crele are egg varieties. The black is a DP variety. Since when breeding birds, I eat all the extra males, the black was my choice of variety.
Extremely rare birds as they are, it took me about a year to find my foundation stock.
They quickly outshone all other breeds for my liking.

In addition to the dark eggs, Black Penedesencas are famous in Spain for their meat qualities. They are considered organoleptically unique from other chickens. Not the same but on a par with French Bresse. There is an annual festival for the black Penedesenca rooster in Penedes on the weekend before Christmas called Fira del Gall (fair of the rooster).
It is a huge foodie event. Penedes is the first wine growing region of Europe and at the fair they feature all sorts of poultry. Area restaurants compete by preparing their best recipes utilizing the meat of the black Penedesenca.
There are usually about 1,000 BP roosters there that people select and pay $50 for the bird to be butchered and dressed on the spot that will be their Christmas dinner.
We only have the classic black variety in the US. There is now an improved version in Spain but in making a larger bird for meat, they lost the dark egg color and the white earlobe. To me, those are their most important qualities so I have no interest in the improved.

I think there are 2 possible reasons that these wonderful birds aren't more popular other than the fact that most people have never heard of them.
Lots of people want pet birds they can cuddle with. This isn't the breed for that, however, some of the people I've sold to have tamed them nicely.
The other reason is they are known by some to be flighty and I think that is a misnomer.
By nature, they avoid human contact - or anything non-chicken. But if not closely confined they are quite calm. They just need to know they have an escape path. They are very respectful of fences no matter how short. Most of my fences are 3' and the usual way they get out is by sneaking under, not flying over.
Once they reach a year of age, they aren't nearly as wary around me since they believe I'm not there to eat them and they come running when I go outside but I just can't pick one up like I could with Orps or JGs.
I much prefer this behavior because I can leave them all outside during the day and not be concerned about them.
For years, I've kept flocks of roosters in 2' pens. That makes them cheaper to keep.
Alert as they are, nothing can sneak up on them during the day nor drop down from the sky unobserved.
They see hawks coming long before I ever could. I hear them make the aerial predator call, walk outside and it will still be a while till the hawk appears.
I've seen a rooster take a hawk out of the air and then slowly stride back to where he sent the hens to hide.

They are quite heat hardy even in our humid conditions. I no longer worry about summer heat. They have also fared our extreme cold temps too. We hit -19F one night a couple years ago and my birds are in buildings with huge windows open on both the east and west. I've never lost a bird to cold. The roosters do tend to get frostbitten combs and wattles but I don't coddle them.
They are on organic pasture and usually organic fermented feed which I sometimes supplement with kelp and berries in winter.








As for the white earlobe, there is an additional breed that is also from Catalonia that lays dark eggs with a white earlobe. It is the Empordanesa. They come in several color varieties but only the white has been imported into the US. As the Penedesenca comes from the Penedes region, the Empordanesa comes from the Emporda region.

 

[karenerwin]

I got my Black Penedesencas from ChickenCanoe. I wanted a breed that laid the dark "chocolate" eggs and while researching breeds ChickenCanoe introduced me to the Black Penedesencas.
I currently have 1 rooster, 2 hens & 1 pullet. One of the hens did go broody and hatched a couple of eggs (4). She would have hatched more of the Black Penedesenca eggs, except for human error on my part. She was the first broody I ever had. Of the 2 penedesenca eggs she hatched 1 made it. The other I found at a few days old out of the nest and on the very cold ground. I tried to warm it up, but it had been too long. I enjoy the breed very much and am working to expand my flock and keep the breed pure.

I was very excited to see the picture of my eggs in the incubator at the beginning of the article! I did hatch out 8 or 10 Black Penedesencas but all but 2 turned out to be cockerels!

 

[karenerwin]

I took some pictures of my Black Penedesencas this evening. As a disclaimer, the rooster had a bad case of frost bite last winter when the tarp blew off the coop on a very windy & cold night. So his crown took significant damage, as did his wattles. He lost parts of his crown & pieces of his wattles. Since then, I enclosed that end of that coop with wood.


Rooster

Hen

Hen You can see how her crown flops over.



Pullet

 

[1kluckychik]

 

[karenerwin]

Close up of the rooster. He was not real thrilled with me being in their enclosure taking pictures.

This is where he and the 2 hens sleep at night. The enclosed coop is available behind me, but this is where they prefer to sleep. Sometimes when they free range he wants to sleep in a bush near the coop. The hens stayed out a couple of times, but I guess they got tired of my picking them out of the bush after dark & putting them back in the enclosre, so now they come in on their own.

 

[Finnie]

My four straight run Partridge Penes are 5 weeks old now. The 2 males had quite suspicious combs very early on. I would say by 3 or 4 weeks, there was no longer any doubt about them. Even started to turn pink already. I didn't trust that the girls were girls though, until their feathers started coming in female colored. Between 4 and 5 weeks for that.

 

[B3hen]

I purchased 10 penedesencas and by 2-3 weeks I could tell the boys from the girls. I’ve never had chicks of any breed before that you could distinguish at that early of an age the sex of the chicken

 

[Aquachick]

You're right they are easy to tell pretty early. It of my 8 straight run l had six hens and two roosters. I got lucky. They are just beginning to lay now. Love the darker egg color. Much different than my Welsummer and marans.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Beautiful birds! Are they pretty heat-tolerant?

Very. That is one of their many attributes.