- Jan 4, 2009
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I (my nephew, that is, before coming over to visit me) acquired the hatching eggs from a gentleman in the Bergen (Norway) region who at the time allegedly was the president of the local poultry club. According to my nephew, he said that had three young cockerels in with his pullets in his breeding pen, though my nephew has no clue about anything chicken related. I get the idea to get some eggs following a recommendation from my friend Dr. Hans Schippers in the Netherlands (he had previously arranged for the shipment of hatching eggs from top breeders of Barnevelders, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Welsummers (and I can't recall the fourth breed) to Lowell Barber and me), and I knew nothing about the breed at that time. 10 eggs hatched out of the 12, and 1 runt was eliminated but the remaining 9 (3 males, 6 females) were very healthy and grew out very quickly to start laying at about 19 weeks of age. These birds were divided into 3 breeding trios: 1 light variety, 1 dark variety, and 1 mixed (1 dark male, 1 dark female, 1 light female), and I set eggs from all pens the following late spring (the original ones were hatched around early January). Out of this offspring, I shipped a breeding trio to Lowell, one trio to poultry judge Dennis Thompson in Iowa, and one trio to the late Ron Nelson in Wisconsin. In addition, I donated hatching eggs to some of the local 4H kids and also shipped additional hatching eggs to Ron Nelson (Ron, Lowell, and I had been trading hatching eggs of the Welsummers for several years already). I do not know what happened to the Jaers that Lowell had (though I believe a lady in Carolina was able to salvage some of them along with some of Lowell's Welsummers) when he passed away; nor do I know the fate of Ron's birds or how Dennis Thompson proceeded when he ended up in a situation in which he no longer could keep poultry--though I am pretty sure he passed them on to a reputable breeder as he thought very highly of them.
I have done my best to gather information about the breed by reading lots of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish articles from years ago and have also been able to track down some of the current breeders along with the information available through the government sponsored genetic maintenance programs in Norway. I have done my best to maintain the breed in my own flocks, and in addition to keeping an unmanageable number of cockbirds from the various groups I have "bought back" chicks from Sand Hill as well as Ideal on three occasions. The chicks from Ideal have been very uniform in type and are still reasonably good layers, so I have used them to cross with my own as well as birds from Sand Hill. Moreover, I have some birds in my layer flock that are a production type white Leghorn/Jaer cross, and I am considering mating a couple of these pullets to a Jaer cockbird this spring to see what comes out of that mating because the LH/Jaer cross pullets have been superior layers during their first laying year.
When the decision was made by the Norwegian government agency to try to save their own livestock land races, their selection of breeders for the Jaers was based on meticulous record keeping (health, production) without much attention to conformation characteristics. The show specifications came later. The most prominent avian scientists available were engaged in the government controlled breeding program to address concerns regarding inbreeding and productivity, which I believe explains the relative robust nature of the breed as it has been handed down to us today. The Jaers were used in commercial egg production into the 1970s, and a select flock was then established by a government run gene bank to make birds/eggs available to hobbyists and small scale farmers in the future.
I hope this rambling note may throw some light on the history of the breed here in the US.
Happy New Year to you all.
