Understanding chook breeds

For the next few editions, we will be highlighting the best dual purpose breeds for our area.

First up we have the Barnevelder. The Barnevelder originated in Asia and was imported into the Netherlands in the late 19th century, where is became a common barn yarn fowl.

During the second world war they were nearly lost, as most of them were eaten.

But luckily here in Tasmania Dutch immigrants brought some with them and they are now readily available here in Tasmania.

Barnevelder are a good purebred to start out with as they are friendly, calm and assured. They are also good with kids.

They have a good life span, up to 10 years.

They lay a dark chocolate egg and lay 3-4 eggs a week, this is usually around 160-220 eggs for the whole year.

I’ve known 8 year old hens that still lay.

They are also know as good winter layers and are great foragers, which is suited for free range.

Roosters will weigh around 4kg and hens are around 2.5kg.

They have fine grained dark richly flavoured meat.

Barnevelder are not great flyers, which makes then easier to contain in backyards.

They generally do not go broody, but when they do they do make good mothers.

Barnevelder have one draw back, it is that they tend to get fat when confined.

Ideally they should have access to free range for at least part of the day.

If confined for all of the day scatter grain and hang green feed to keep them busy, or even build a swing – some chooks like to swing!

They are several colour varieties – gold, silver and blue which are all double laced, and the black, white and partridge.

The most common being the gold double laced.

The photo is a gold double laced rooster and hen.