France BYCers - anyone out there?

[brownysfp]

Brit abroad in France, seen a few UK posts but none from here - apologies if I've missed someone. Anyone focusing on French breeds?

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

I'm in the US but hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread to ask - How do you like it? France compared to your home? Have you seem many differences in the chicken breeds?

 

[brownysfp]

Hi
It's very different to Kingston-on-Thames, a university town south-west of London, where I was a librarian at the uni. I was in the Poitou-Charentes - very agricultural - before moving in with my GF in the Correze, which is very wooded and hilly. As for chickens in the UK the nearest I got was the supermarket. It all started over here when a friend donated four ISAs; I added six guinea fowl to the mix and they all came with me. And two days later they were all dead. Something nasty in the woods viewed the fencing and the coop as just a minor inconvenience.
After beefing up the defences we bought four more ISAs followed up by a Buff Brahma cock and three hens. And so it began: Barred Rocks, Light Sussex, and Copper Black Marans followed. Amazing how the darn things are so addictive...Faverolles and Houdans and Coucou de France all joined.
The local breeds are pretty hardy as the winters can be tough; we have to watch the Faverolles and Brahma with their feathered feet but otherwise it's just comb and wattle greasing.
We're trying to raise Coq de Peche, the Fishing Cock of the Limousin aka Limousine Blue. We're getting eggs and using both an incubator and a broody Coucou - some should be hatching this week in fact. There's peeping from the incubator so fingers x'd...