Bresse chickens reach mature or process weight at 4 months. and get heavier as they age. They start baby crowing at 2 months, but its just once in a while. When they hit 3 months, the rooster's crowing are very loud and constant in the am. They definitely hit the annoying nerve.
The hens start laying at 4 months and they are just as loud and annoying as the roosters. They want everybody in the neighborhood to know they laid an egg. Its a good thing they lay at mid day and not the early morning.
Green Fire Farm brought in two different lines from France to diversify its blood line. One of the rooster lines has a thick neck, exactly like my White Plymouth Rock rooster. They will die if you try to tone them down with a rooster collar. However, the other line look a little different from this pure white line, it has some cream color high light on their white feathers, this line can wear rooster collars.
I built a wooden holding pen to finish them, but I ended up using the pen to raise 15 Cornish crosses, so I did not grain finish them with milk. I raised them like heritage breeds.
Breese chickens were a little more tender and filled in more than my heritage breeds and my heritage breeds took one month longer to reach the same weight at 5 months.
In the end, they tasted like chicken, so flavor will vary with the chef.
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