Crèvecœur chicken

Did You Know?

• The Crèvecœur was traditionally kept as a dual-purpose chicken for both eggs and meat.
• In the twenty-first century it is raised primarily for poultry exhibition.

History

The Crèvecœur is a very old French chicken breed, though its exact beginnings are not known. It is named after the Normandy commune of Crèvecœur-en-Auge, near Lisieux. These birds earned prizes at the 1855 Paris Exposition Universelle. Louis Bréchemin gave a thorough description in 1894, but the breed standard was not officially adopted by the French poultry association until 1909. The breed's numbers in France dropped sharply during both world wars, and after the second it was believed to be almost gone. Recovery efforts started in 1976, led by Jean-Claude Périquet. Separate bantam varieties were created in the United States around 1960 and in Germany near the year 2000.

Characteristics

The Crèvecœur chicken shares its crest with the Houdan breed, but it has four toes and a v-shaped comb like the La Flèche. Black is the most common colour and the only one accepted in the UK and US; France also recognises blue, white, and cuckoo varieties. Its face, comb, ear-lobes, and wattles are bright red, while the legs and feet are slate blue or black. The beak is dark horn, and the eyes can be red or occasionally black.