Sundheimer
| Sundheimer | |
|---|---|
 Sundheim rooster and hen |
|
| origin | Sundheim (Kehl) |
| year | 1886 |
| colour | white-black columbia (light) |
| Weight | Rooster 3.0-3.5 kg hen 2.5-3.0 kg |
| Laying output per year | approx. 220 |
| Eggshell color | Light to dark brown, also speckled |
| Egg weight | 55 g |
| Ring size | Rooster 22 mm, hen 20 mm |
| List of breeds of chicken | |
The Sundheimer is a German breed of chicken , also known as the Sundheimer chicken . The Sundheimer is considered to be the oldest Zwiehuhn and is the only chicken that was bred in Baden . Due to the location of the breeding center Sundheim, a district of Kehl , the breeding goals were strongly influenced depending on the state affiliation with Strasbourg as the temporary main sales market. The trusting animals are good winter layers. Sundheimer chickens are rare and are considered to be critically endangered.
Origin and development
The origin of the Sundheimer chicken lies in the vicinity of Strasbourg and Kehl, whereby it can be assumed that the farmers on the German side of the Hanauerland had already started producing heavy meat chickens for the Strasbourg market or for the restaurants of this important center since the beginning of the 18th century in the southern Upper Rhine Valley. To breed these heavy chickens, land races were used, into which Belgian or northern French fighters were crossed probably towards the end of the 18th century. From 1855 Brahma , later Dorking and after 1870 Wanzenauer roosters were used for breeding, which in turn had originated from indigenous broiler chickens and Houdans . These so-called Wanzenauers, named after the Alsatian town of Wanzenau , were primarily used to refine the meat structure, since after Alsace was annexed to the German Empire in 1871, a market for high-quality meat chickens, especially Strasbourg, had emerged.
In order to be able to offer a product that was as constant as possible on the market, a peasant breeding cooperative, the “Sundheimerhuhnes Vereinigung” was founded in Sundheim, which set up a fattening facility based on the French model on a separate piece of land. The young animals were often raised during the winter in the farmers' living quarters as parlor chicks in special boxes under the tiled stove bench typical of southern Baden .
The aim was to establish the breed as a DLG-tested trademark , the “Sundheimerhuhn”. The high quality, which was based on French standards, meant that Sundheimer broiler poultry was soon valued not only in the inns in Strasbourg, but also in those in Kehl, Offenburg , Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe .
In Baden, the farming cooperatives in Sundheim and Sand were centers for breeding the Sundheimer grouse, and the Kork poultry breeding association also endeavored to develop this breed. But there was also interest in this easy-to-fatten and resilient breed of chicken in other regions of the empire at that time. In 1898, the Wiesbaden Chamber of Agriculture introduced the Sundheimerhuhn in Hesse and breeders in neighboring Alsace used this breed.
After Alsace returned to France after the First World War , Strasbourg, an important market for the meat-based Sundheimer chicken, was lost. For this reason, among other things, the breed was further bred with the aim of an easily fattening, medium-weight and well-laying bovine hen.
Today Sundheimers are popular with breeders who are economically oriented and who value both high-quality meat and eggs. In addition, Sundheimer hens in particular are currently in demand by people who want to keep chickens in their own gardens. Confidence, poor flight ability and, if a rooster is to be kept up, contribute to this current development, its reluctant way of crowing.
Existence and endangerment
Sundheimers are among the rare breeds in Europe and are considered an endangered domestic animal breed . The BDRG and the GEH have classified the Sundheimer chicken in the “Red List of Threatened Poultry Breeds” in the second highest hazard class II (endangered). According to the population of the Federation of German Poultry Breeders and the Society for the Preservation of Old and Endangered Domestic Breeds , 206 Sundheimer roosters and 817 hens were kept in 2009.
The Federal Office for Agriculture and Food indicates the number of 865 hens and 234 roosters for 2013.
The “Association for the Preservation of the Sundheimer Chicken and the Dwarf Sundheimer Chicken”, the successor to the “peasant breeding cooperative” founded in Sundheim in 1886, endeavors to maintain and maintain the Sundheimer chicken and its dwarf form.
Features and performance
The roosters weigh 3 to 3.5 kg and the hens weigh 2.5 to 3 kg. Their fine meat is not only valued by economically-minded breeders, especially since the young animals grow up relatively quickly with appropriate care. At the same time, the Sundheimer chicken, which is considered to be the oldest German breed of Zwiehuhn, has a high laying performance of around 175 to 200 eggs, and they are considered good winter layers. The eggs are mostly light brown. The hens begin to lay around six months of age.
Sundheimer chickens are considered to be trusting and calm, the roosters cautiously and not too often. Because of their weight and the relatively short wings, they are not good fliers and therefore also suitable for keeping in allotments without particularly high enclosures. Sundheimers are intensive forage seekers and use grass runs or village gardens very well. Sundheim hens do not have a pronounced breeding instinct.
Breed characteristics
precursor
Like other chicken breeds, the Sundheimer chicken has gone through very different stages depending on the needs. This is how Jean Bungartz writes in his book “Chicken Breeds. Illustrated manual for the assessment of the breeds of the domestic chicken "1893 about the Sundheimer chicken:
“In the Baden district of Offenburg, a special breed of chickens has been bred for years, which bears the name “ Sundheimer Huhn ” after the village of Sundheim . This fowl flock is said to have developed out of itself without human intervention and is a really recommendable fowl flock. The figure of the Sundheimer Chicken stands between Cochin and Brahma, which probably reach it in size and weight, but show a more slender shape than this. The most common color is light and dark sparred , then monochrome yellow, piebald, gray and rarely white. The Sundheimer chicken is quite resistant to the effects of the weather, shows rapid growth, easy rearing, high fertility and quick fattening. The meat is excellent, this chicken is quite heavy and should also serve well as a breeder. "
In 1905 it was reported that the color was "light brahma-colored, also yellow, salmon-colored, white, pearled gray and dashed, here and there light with dark sparrow- colored spots on the saddle and tail". In addition, different types were bred in the respective places. "The poultry association Kork breeds salmon-colored with a beard, the peasant breeding cooperatives from Sand and Sundheim are bright-brahma-colored, without a beard with a small standing comb", the report from 1905 reads further.
In 1912 a sample description was published in Heilbronn, in which, among other things, the plumage color is specified as “light brahma with a little more white” and according to which the legs should be “slightly feathered”. Copi writes about the breed description from 1914: “There is only one color. REINWEISS! ”This definition of the colors still exists today, even if other characteristics have been changed in the meantime through breeding, such as the willingness to breed, which Bungartz emphasized, while the hens are not considered particularly good breeders today.
Even more drastic was the change in the breeding goal from pure broiler chickens to cattle, which was made around 1920 due to the extensive disappearance of the Strasbourg market. In 1939, according to Copi, "the perfect Sundheimer type was achieved". However, the population was so decimated by war events that the breed almost became extinct.
Current license plates
The current model description was established in 1966.
According to this, the head of the chicken is purely silver-white, the neck hangings have a broad, deep black, shiny green shaft line with a silver-white border. The cock and hen are drawn almost identical.
The breed occurs exclusively in the color white-black columbia, in contrast to the outwardly similar Sussex , however, no collar closure is required.
The horizontal trunk is full, wide and deep, the bulging chest reveals a good flesh attachment. The back must also be wide, with the line being flat and the saddle just flat towards the tail. The tail itself is not long, but is carried in a sickle shape. Sundheimers have barely visible thighs, the legs are weak, sometimes with feathering down to the outer toes.
The head should be broad and have a small, simply cut comb. The hens also have a standing comb. Sundheimers have red, elongated ear lobes and short, more round wattles. The eyes are orange-red to red.
Dwarf form
With the dwarf Sundheimer there is also a recognized breed of bantam that is relatively well distributed.
The first dwarf forms of the Sundheimer chicken were crossed with dwarf Sussex around 1920 . Only a few specimens of these animals remained in Sundheim after 1945, with which Fritz Walter continued to breed without this breed, which was exhibited in Hanover in 1952, receiving official recognition. After Walter's death in 1961, the breed disappeared. It was not until 1977 that Johann Bilina, Günter Copi and Willi Wolf bred a new dwarf breed from the first parents dwarf Cochin , German dwarf salmon chicken , dwarf Sussex and Großer Sundheimer, which was recognized in 1980.
Dwarf Sundheimers resemble the large breed in numerous characteristics: They are trusting, lay a considerable number of brownish eggs, which can also be spotted, and are resistant to harsh weather. They move around a lot and are good forage seekers.
Sundheimer bantams are of medium weight, have a full, wide and deep trunk in an almost horizontal position. They have half-length thighs and slightly feathered legs. The crest is simple and upright, the ear lobes red, the wattles short and rounded. As with the large breed, the color is white and black columbia.
The rooster weighs approx. 1.2 kg, the hen weighs one kg. Sundheim dwarf hens lay around 160 eggs a year, with the eggs weighing around 45 g.
Others
In 2014 the Sundheimerhuhn was included in the “Ark of Taste” by Slow Food Germany .
literature
- Horst Marks, Wolfgang Krebs: Our pedigree poultry: chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl . VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1968.
- Horst Schmidt: The chicken breeds . Volume 1: Fighters and Heavy Types. Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1991. ISBN 3-7842-1305-7 .
- Günter Copi: The Chicken from Sundheim. 2002.
- Horst Schmidt, Rudi Proll: Pocket Atlas Chickens and Bantams , Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8001-6418-9 .
Web links
- Website of the Association for the Preservation of Sundheimer Chicken and Dwarf Sundheimer Chicken, founded in 1886
- Private website about the Sundheimer Chicken - Innsbruck
Individual evidence
- ^ Günter Copi: The chicken from Sundheim. 2002, p. 22
- ↑ Red List of Endangered Poultry Breeds. In: bdrg.de. BDRG , GEH , Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food , July 31, 2012, accessed on November 3, 2014 ( Download , PDF, 690 kB).
- ↑ Breed description of the GEH
- ^ Breed description on the TGRDEU website
- ^ Website of the Association for the Preservation of the Sundheimer Chicken and the Dwarf Sundheimer Chicken
- ↑ Jean Bungartz : Chicken Breeds . Illustrated manual for judging the breeds of domestic fowl. 2nd probably and expanded edition except for the newest breeds. E. Twietmeyer, Leipzig 1893, OCLC 753480711 , Various Landhuhnschlag, p. 90 ( Digitized from the University of California in the HathiTrust Digital Library [accessed November 3, 2014]).
- ^ Günter Copi: The chicken from Sundheim. 2002, p. 31
- ^ Günter Copi: The chicken from Sundheim. 2002, p. 44
- ^ Günter Copi: The chicken from Sundheim. 2002, p. 77
- ↑ Schmidt, Proll: Taschenatlas Hühner und Zwerghühner , 2010, p. 184
- ↑ Sundheimer Chicken from Slow Food Germany , accessed May 28, 2015