Chantecler
The Chantecler is Canada's chicken. The bird was created to withstand the harsh and extreme Canadian weather. These birds can easily be wintered with out issue to their small cushion combs and very small waddles. They are quiet birds that make excellent homestead birds.
The dual purpose bird is a large chicken that lays respectably well and is a good meat producer. Roosters weigh around 9 pounds (4.1 kg), and hens are 6.5–7.5 lb (2.9–3.4 kg). The breed possess yellow skin and beaks, and lay brown eggs.
THE HISTORY
The Chantecler chicken is an exceptional dual-purpose poultry breed from Quebec, Canada. Brother Wilfred Chatelain decided to develop the Chantecler breed while walking through the Oka Agricultural Institute’s poultry flocks. He realized there were no chicken breeds from Canada as all of the ones being used originated in Europe or America. He then set out to create a chicken that could endure the harsh Canadian climate and be used for both egg and meat production.
From the French words ‘chanter,’ meaning “to sing,” and ‘clair,’ meaning “bright,” the Chantecler is considered the first Canadian chicken breed. Under the supervision of Brother Chatelain, the monks of the Cistercian Abbey in Oka, Quebec, sought to create, “a fowl of vigorous and rustic temperament that could resist the climatic conditions of Canada, a general-purpose fowl.” The Chantecler was created by first crossing a Dark Cornish male with a White Leghorn female, and a Rhode Island Red male with a White Wyandotte female. The following season, pullets from the first cross were mated to a cockerel from the second cross. Selected pullets from this last mating were then mated to a White Plymouth Rock male, thus producing This produced a pure White Chantecler. Although work began in 1908, the breed wasn’t introduced to the public until 1918, and was admitted to the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection in 1921.
