CreveCoeur - any experience, feedback?

[TriciaChickens]

Looking to augment my small backyard flock and am intrigued with the CreveCoueur hen. Currently have 2 hens (had to rehome one) and want to add 3 to the group. Have a New Hampshire and an Ameracana. Looking for breeds that are between 5.5 - 6.5 lbs and are fine with confinement (12'x18' coop and run). And specifically looking for a hen with white eggs.

Any thoughts about the CreveCoeur other other breeds with white eggs?

Thank you!

 

[333113]

Leghorns are some of the best layers in the world, and they lay large white eggs; I would not recommend the Crevecour for egg production as it's considered an "ornamental" breed, as it does not steadily give eggs and not many at that. Other breeds that lay white eggs include the black Australorp and the Fresian. Good luck!

Sorry to contradict, but so _NOT_ true that Crevecoeurs are ornamental or bad layers!

I have five Crevecoeur hens who have been laying steadily for four years, with a brief break here and there. The rest only lay about 200-220 eggs a year, except my eleven year old hen, who only laid 53 last year.

I have been raising Crevecoeurs since 1998. Over the years I have seen plenty of misinformation about them. A true Crevecoeur is a hardy, healthy, long-lived bird. The hens are excellent layers of large white eggs.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who cross Crevecoeurs with other birds, and then pass off the results as true Crevecoeurs. Not every black crested chicken is a Crevecoeur.

You may want to check out Jeannette Beranger's Facebook page for her Crevecoeur project. Look at some of the correspondents there for good quality Crevecoeurs from various states. I sell hatching eggs (I have ads on Poultry Show Central and on the Livestock Conservancy classifieds), but currently have no juveniles or adults available--all sold out.

I have posted photos in the Crevecoeur section, if you want to look at mine.

 

[Acre4Me]

White leghorns are known to produce well, and lay large white eggs. However, not very showy, generally not known to be friendly (cuddly) because they tend to be more flighty.

The Black Australorps we have are very friendly, but do lay a brown egg.

We had a silver spangled Hamburg, and generally they are known to be flighty and NOT very suitable for confinement. This is true - we often had to retrieve this one from the other side of the run fencing.

On BYC, there are articles on chicken breeds, but I don't think they are sorted by egg color.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/category/chicken-breeds.16/

And most hatcheries will have their chicks sorted by egg color. Here is a link to Meyer Hatchery, although most will sort their chickens by egg color:
https://www.meyerhatchery.com/get_subcat.a5w?cat=1020

And, many hatcheries offer started pullets. Since you are only wanting a few chickens, this might be a good option for you. They will be 16 weeks or older usually, so close to Point of Lay (POL) and they will be female, since you wouldn't get an accidental male. As an example, here is Meyer hatchery page on started pullets, which has a limited selection of popular breeds: https://www.meyerhatchery.com/productlist.a5w?subcat=5087&cat=1020

Many hatcheries out there, so I'm only using Meyer as an example since I'm in OH, and we don't know your location.

Here is an article on the Crevecoeur breed:
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/crevecoeur

The above link indicates that the conservation status is "Critical", so maybe not so easy to find this breed. But, in the US, the NPIP organization lists breeders an hatcheries that are NPIP inspected/approved to be free of certain illnesses and certain states require this for shipping. So, you can look up your state, if you are in the US and see what is near to you. Breed codes are used, and the code for Crevecouer is: R88. Here is the link for searching by state:
http://www.poultryimprovement.org/statesContent.cfm

 

[ColtHandorf]

Sicilian Buttercups are also amazing layers of white eggs.

 

[Shadowfire]

Leghorns are some of the best layers in the world, and they lay large white eggs; I would not recommend the Crevecour for egg production as it's considered an "ornamental" breed, as it does not steadily give eggs and not many at that. Other breeds that lay white eggs include the black Australorp and the Fresian. Good luck!

 

[Ribh]

My Black Australorps lay brown eggs. Leghorns should lay white ones. Lakenvelders [?] , Sumatras, Hamburgs are supposed to be white layers but I don't have experience with any of them.

 

[Acre4Me]

You can normally tell the color of the egg the chicken lays by the color of their earlobes. Red Earlobes = brown eggs. White earlobes = white eggs. I'm not quite sure about blue or black skinned breeds, but that is how I tell.

Very general guideline, but there are several exceptions. Some chickens lay blue or green eggs. Some lay brown eggs but have white ear lobes (Pendesenca lay dark brown eggs with white ear lobes), and the reverse red earlobes and white eggs (Holland) are two examples.

 

[333113]

Sorry, got so caught up in the breed topic that I forgot to fully answer the other questions.

I don't think that there is much we humans can do to influence the relationships between birds in a flock. Not that I don't try. Just today I had to remove the lowest hen in the pecking order from my Buff Orpington layer pen. I had added hiding places, extra nestboxes, a more mellow rooster, and she was still getting chased and pecked by the other hens.

The best way to keep one bird safe from another is to put them in separate cages.

So, you might want to consider a separate pen for some of your birds, which brings me to another point. When people first start with chickens, sometimes they get a lot of different breeds. If you are thinking about hatching or showing, you will want to consider that most shows don't include a category for birds that are mixed breeds. This also somewhat reduces the market for your mixed chicks. (Except for breeding for colored eggs, which is an entirely different discussion!)

Separate cages for separate breeds will guarantee that the eggs your hen lays will be the same breed that she and her roo are. Sounds like you could have a Brahma pen and a Buckeye pen right now and have purebred offspring.

You can look up all breeds at the chicken pages of www.feathersite.com. If they are heritage chickens like Crevecoeurs, Buckeyes, Houdans you can look them up on the poultry pages of the Livestock Conservancy at https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/conservation-priority-list#Chickens

If you really want show quality Crevecoeurs, I would be happy to trade a pair for your cockerels.

 

[SBFChickenGirl]

You can normally tell the color of the egg the chicken lays by the color of their earlobes. Red Earlobes = brown eggs. White earlobes = white eggs. I'm not quite sure about blue or black skinned breeds, but that is how I tell.

 

[The LRR Coop]

Sorry to contradict, but so _NOT_ true that Crevecoeurs are ornamental or bad layers!

I have five Crevecoeur hens who have been laying steadily for four years, with a brief break here and there. The rest only lay about 200-220 eggs a year, except my eleven year old hen, who only laid 53 last year.

I have been raising Crevecoeurs since 1998. Over the years I have seen plenty of misinformation about them. A true Crevecoeur is a hardy, healthy, long-lived bird. The hens are excellent layers of large white eggs.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who cross Crevecoeurs with other birds, and then pass off the results as true Crevecoeurs. Not every black crested chicken is a Crevecoeur.

You may want to check out Jeannette Beranger's Facebook page for her Crevecoeur project. Look at some of the correspondents there for good quality Crevecoeurs from various states. I sell hatching eggs (I have ads on Poultry Show Central and on the Livestock Conservancy classifieds), but currently have no juveniles or adults available--all sold out.

I have posted photos in the Crevecoeur section, if you want to look at mine.

Hi Connie, I have a few questions for you. I see you've been raising Crevecoeurs for quite some time. We are new to the chicken life and it's become addictive. We currently have four Brahma pullets and one cockrel, one Swedish Flower pullet, one Black Copper Marans pullet, one buckeye pullet and cockrel and one crevecoeur pullet and cockrel. I am aware that this is a bit of an imbalance for boys vs girls. If you see my profile pic you will see my crevecoeur cockrel. He was given to me because he clearly does not meet breed standards. I've included a pic of our pullet. One question I have is, has it been your experience that the crevecoeur cockrels tend to mature faster than other breeds, such as the ones we have? They are all supposed to be of the same age and our Creve has much more developed spurs whereas the Brahma and Buckeye have barely noticeable spurs. Could they actually be similar in age or would the Creve be older since he's got spurs?
Another question... while our Creve is smaller than the others he is more assertive. The Creve and Buckeyes came at the same time but were separated until we brought them here. The Creve doesn't bother the Buckeye much but will chase our Brahma and pin him down. There does not appear to be any fighting. "Yet".. There is peace in the chicken house but once we let them out Creve goes after Brahma to pin him. I'm assuming this is a dominance move. I was more concerned for my brahma when it was really hot but now it's cooler. It doesn't go on all day, just periodically. Is this pretty harmless behavior as long as they aren't fighting? Is there anything you recommend to discourage it?

None have ever shown any aggression towards us. We spend time with our chickens pretty much every day. They will come when we call.