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By Roger Ranson , BHR Communications, UK
The Hellevad chicken is an egg laying strain that has been bred by the Wolf family over the past 50 years and sold to small producers, many of them backyard or hobby farmers, in small numbers. The hatchery, in the northern part of Jutland, has a capacity of hatching 3,000 day-old chicks at a time, and sells some 35,000 pullets during the year.The breed is a combination of original US and native Danish blood lines. The female line is derived from the New Hampshire breed imported to Denmark in the 1950s, while the male line is a local strain of white Leghorn developed by the Skalborg breeding centre over 30 years and then acquired by the Wolf family in 1980. This was a pivotal moment in the Danish egg industry, a year after the Government lifted the ban on battery cages. This led to the widespread adoption of international hybrids, lighter strains selected for cage production, and the demise of many native breeds.
Robust health
The customer base of the Hellevad hatchery, far removed from the large-scale commercial industry, enabled it to continue developing its traditional strains for the local market, particularly the organic and free range sectors that account for more than 15% of the Danish demand today. Hatchery owner Jørn Wolf has always known that his layers enjoyed robust health. They have been given no preventative medication or treatment for 45 years, have low mortality and retain good feather cover throughout lay.
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| Hatchery owner Jørn Wolf with the parent lines to the Hellevad chicken, the local Skalborg strain of White Leghorn and a New Hampshire. |
In a 1997 trial against a commercial ISA layer strain, the inferior egg production of the Hellevad breed was balanced by much lower mortality as a result of the more docile behaviour as well as disease resistance. This characteristic attracted the interest of research scientists at a Government institute. The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aarhus University, has an institute near Viborg where senior scientist Dr Helle Juul-Madsen and her colleagues work on immunology. “No, there’s no connection between my name and that of the hatchery,” she quips as she introduces their work to us.
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Source: World Poultry,Vol. 27, No. 4, 2011
