Ok, I sound like a bit of a moron... but it is pretty darn good I think, especially for advertising the sale. I have already had calls about the sale because of it!
And no, I dont have 200 bird. Im pretty sure I have about 100 including chicks. lol...
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
County Market
Tastes like chicken . . . only better
*PHOTO*
The Chantecler chicken is one specifically bred for Canadian winters. It has less wattle and comb, which would otherwise not deal well with snow and cold and the feathers are also slightly more insulating.
More Photos
Tastes like chicken . . . only better
By Dave Lazzarino
Posted 2 days ago
WETASKIWIN - Birds of a feather flock together, but for a growing group of producers the flock is a looking a little more diverse.
Shannon de Bruin is a Wetaskiwin-based member of the Canadian Heritage Breeds Association (CHBA), a group pushing to bring back some breeds of livestock that are not as widely known.
“Heritage breeds are the breeds that were originally around before the commercial breeds came up,” de Bruin explained. “The commercial breeds are bred to be identical. They have a very narrow gene pool on them because you want those birds to produce at absolutely optimal levels. It’s a business and you want them to all do everything at exactly the same time.”
Heritage breeds, on the other hand, can have a range of colour, size and temperament. And that’s just the chickens. The group is trying to promote the heritage strains of poultry, waterfowl, guinea fowl, sheep, pigs, horses and cattle as well.
Right now, de Bruin is focusing on chickens because she said they are easiest market to get into.
“There’s some 250 different breeds and that’s just what we recognize here in North America, never mind what’s in Europe and South America,” she said. “The big difference, the heritage breeds grow slower and produce a little bit less than your optimal commercial breeds. However, when you fast-grow or fast-produce something, you can’t get as much nutrients into it. So there’s really no comparing the texture and flavour of a slow-grown heritage breed of chicken or turkey or goose to something that is a factory broiler animal.”
Where a factory chicken is ready to butcher at about eight weeks, the heritage breeds take another month to mature. But the benefit comes in the taste.
“It’s a much richer flavour, the meat tends to be firmer and juicier,” she said. Because of that, cooking requires less added ingredients like salt.
The egg layers also offer some benefit to the farmer because they can produce for up to seven years where the mass-produced animals have a cutoff of closer to two years.
The CHBA is still in its infancy but many of their members have branched out into vegetables and different forms of livestock as well.
“There’s a lot of people in the club who breed 10 or 12 different breeds of tomato and there’s a lot of swapping of seeds and plants that goes on during our meet,” said de Bruin, who feels her 200 chickens puts her at about the average sized operation in the club.
“It’s a completely different business model. There’s no comparing it. When we do sell it’s usually more of a niche market boutique — people who are looking for organic, people who are chemical sensitive quite often don’t have a lot of choice. People with lots of allergies will have to go to someone who has the organic or the heritage birds,” she said.
Right now the group is busy promoting their efforts and making appearances at markets with the products.
They are planning to hold a market sale in Wetaskiwin at the Drill Hall on June 16 and are looking to get more people involved with small flocks.
They are also looking for vendors to take part. The CHBA can be found online at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
