Norwegian Jaerhon

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You are correct...mine are loving the colder weather
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We dropped to 29 degrees for the last couple of nights, and highs only in the upper 40's. The chickees - 6 weeks old now - are already flying really high, and roosting in the trees. Which is terrific, because I have a Sussex Roo that wants to do away with them. Amazing how quick they are to escape danger!

I don't think we have been quite that cold yet. We had lower 30's and frost last week. Your young chicks are hardy! Do you free range all year? At night my chickens huddle together in a chicken pile by the screen door of the coop. Only a few use the roost.
Wind is bad tonight. Hope we are still on the foundation in the morning.
 
Quote:
You are correct...mine are loving the colder weather
wee.gif
We dropped to 29 degrees for the last couple of nights, and highs only in the upper 40's. The chickees - 6 weeks old now - are already flying really high, and roosting in the trees. Which is terrific, because I have a Sussex Roo that wants to do away with them. Amazing how quick they are to escape danger!

I don't think we have been quite that cold yet. We had lower 30's and frost last week. Your young chicks are hardy! Do you free range all year? At night my chickens huddle together in a chicken pile by the screen door of the coop. Only a few use the roost.
Wind is bad tonight. Hope we are still on the foundation in the morning.

No wind here, but it looks like rain is in the forecast. Yes, my chickens will free range year round, weather permitting. I will keep them in their coop during any severe weather nice and toasty
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So I have been frustrated not more information about this breed is written in English. I have been working on translating some Norwegian articles about jaerhons into English. The author of the following article is unknown to me and I have no way of verifying this information. But to me I found some interesting tid bits of useful knowledge. In this translation I did not change much so the words are jumbled and some sentencing do not make sense. And some words that when translated actually are comical. See if you can get something helpful from this rough translation enjoy! I'll be working on getting more as I can.

Norwegian Jærhøns is the only Norwegian poultry breed and originates from the Norwegian country chicken type as it was before it began to import poultry breeds from abroad in 1850. The term "country chicken" refers to breeds that have long adapted to local conditions in a geographic area. Such conditions can be climate, vegetation, soil, farming and diseases. The result is chicken that is good at finding food if they go out there and that's resistant to disease. They are also usually good egg layers with good maternal characteristics. Jærhøna is certainly prolific, they lay great many white eggs (80% of the commercial production), but unfortunately there are not many lines that go broody any longer. This characteristic has been bred out in favor of a large egg production.Many of the old land races is now unusual and are in danger of dying out. Fortunately we have in Norway a gene bank for poultry by Hvam high school. This ensured jærhøna and a range of other racial chickens for the future through systematic breeding. In this way there is no acute danger that jærhøna will die out, but it is still important that hobby breeders across the country take care of the breed as well. In that sense, it seems as if jærhøna and the other old land races are brighter times ahead. The trend at present seems to be that people want to "return to roots". Small farm, organic farming and conservation of old breeds seem to be in demand like never before! For jærhønas part however, it was close. The old breeds were outcompeted by foreign breeds and eventually it was far from the old country chickens. In 1916 it created a control breeding of Jæren hønseavlsforening and Stavanger amts country catering banqueting. This station collected hatching eggs of what would later be named jærhøns and Norwegian country chickens. The eggs came from different directions, but most seem to have come from the station's first host, Karl Håland. He had already bred this strain for several years and although he had his birds from a woman from Ogna named Inger Lisabet Bridge. She had self-sustaining breeding of this type for thirty years. This means that the type of line drive started going back to the early 1880's.The tribes that were collected at the station was put together and from this material was chosen later a cock (No. 1) and a chicken (No. 26) as the exclusive basis for future breeding. We talk then about a quite exceptional, documented, inbreeding for almost a hundred years! This is quite unusual and should be for what I have learned about genetics lead to inbreeding depression in the form of reduced egg production, increased chick mortality, smaller individuals and other negative things but it does for some reason. How this may have to I do not know, maybe they were just extremely lucky with the committee and chose two animals turned out to be a lucky kombinasjon.Dette small sample, however, has had a consequence: there before which was a very varied type of chicken looks today quite similar. The breed comes in two colors, light and dark, but the old Norwegian country chicken was much more varied in appearance. It existed in many colors from very light to very dark, some had spring peaks and ridge came in many varieties. In this sense than the old version probably pretty much on the island chickens and genetic tests have also shown that jærhøns and Icelandic chickens are closely related.Jærhøns was a time used in commercial egg production, and it was in this context, selected for high egg production. This has also contributed NOK that they are still known today as good egg layers. It has also been hinted that another race, Italians, have been mixed into the race at a time but this has been refuted by other sources. What are the facts we will probably never know. However, what is certain is that some things distinguish them from the old country chickens. For example, they have a large crest. This would be a great inconvenience for a hen kept in a cold barn with no heat source. Under such circumstances it would have frozen the comb and this would in turn led to high mortality. This I have even experienced although I have heat lamp for chickens in winter. Why jærhønene have large comb is a mystery to me unless I have no idea if this means that something else is mixed in at some pointThis was what I had on jærhønas origin. It's probably time to say something about my own experiences with them now. Compared to other races I've had, they are very lively and agile. Many dislike this because it means that they often rush up to each other so that they flap around when you go into the hen house. I can agree with this but I do not think this is a big negative trait. It is still out on the yard I think they come into their own. They are elegant and attractive when they go out. Sometimes they take up like a small flygetur too, because they fly very well so you must have a roof on the chicken farm if you do not want to let them go free. I think it is important that the race is held in relatively spacious premises due to his active personality. It may also be wise to put some effort in activating the hens in the hen house, for example, bread, dried herbs, dried berries and the like. This is especially true in winter when they are not so much out there. Chains they will in fact find the mass bully who eggspising and the like. In my experience, jærhøns more likely than other breeds I know to do this, which probably is due to their high activity level.As the literature says they are quite resistant to diseases but I have had some cases of koccidiose. This is an intestinal disease caused by blooms of a single cell organism in the gut. This has been on chickens that have gone along with the chicks of other races and I think jærkyllingene may be slightly more susceptible to this disease. It is also worth checking butt on young chicks as they tend to "go urban" back there. This can be easily fix by that you wash the chicken in the butt with lukewarm water.Incubation of jærhøns has given good results with me so I expect that most jærhaner doing a good job of seeds eggene.En special things I have not mentioned so far is that the chickens of jærhøns is gender-setting from day one. Dark hen chicks are dark brown with a small bright spot in the neck. Stephane chicks have a larger spot, often covering the majority of the head. Light hen chicks have a yellow base color with brown longitudinal stripes along the back. Young chickens are uniformly yellow. This is a great advantage for those who want to buy chickens as they do not have to buy a bunch of cocks but for me that sells it at a disadvantage as it is I who will be sitting with all the roosters ...Do I say it will keep me, you could write page after page about the breed but a decent impression of the breed you get until you get some yourself. I can certainly recommend jærhøns for people lively chickens that are good eggleggere, and who feel a certain nostalgia by holding an old Norwegian breed.
 
Quote:
What a cutie
love.gif
....I find my roos are just as friendly as my pullets...jumping up on me, pecking at the window like "Let Us In!!!" and following me around. I hope that doesn't change as they mature
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