Text: Elly Vogelaar Photos: Henk Lubbers At the European Show in Wels, Austria in 2000, I promised Henk Lubbers I’d come over for an interview. It took over 10 years before I went to visit him in Aalten, near the German border, but by then he had stopped breeding the Breda Fowl.

Above: One of Henk’s white Breda cockerels. Henk Lubbers Henk and I met at the fanciers’ evening of the European Show in 2000. As one of the editors of the former magazine Avicultura, I was interviewing Dutch fanciers who had travelled together to Austria. Henk was 28 at the time and a very fanatical breeder. He introduced himself to me with the words: “I am the youngest registered breeder of the Breda Fowl in the Netherlands and have been breeding them since 1994”. The evening was too merry and festive to be able to talk seriously, although the few things he said convinced me that he was indeed a skilled breeder, so I asked to visit him and do a proper interview. During the following 10 years, I thought of him from time to time—especially when reading that he had won another Best of Breed prize—but never took action to really visit, until last December, when he announced that he had created a new colour variety in the Breda, which would be entered for recognition at the 2010 Noordshow in January.

Right: Henk in front of his new aviaries. Photo AE.

We awaited the decision of the Standard Committee and as soon as we heard the positive news that the new colour was recognised, I phoned Henk to arrange a visit but was shocked when he said that he had decided to stop breeding the Breda. We were welcome to visit though, but on the day we arrived, there were no Breda left in the coops. In 10 years many things change. The chicken houses are still at his parents’ house, as in the smaller back yard of his own house there is no room for chicken coops. He had married a Polish girl and is now the proud father of two little daughters and a baby son. Whenever they visited his wife’s family in Poland, Henk’s parents took care of his chickens but as they are ageing, Henk decided not to burden them with the responsibility and decided give up breeding chickens. The week before our visit there had been a Club meeting of the BKU Club (Breeders of Brabanter, Kraaikop, Uilebaard—or in English: Brabanter, Breda and Owl-beard) and all his Breda chickens and bantams found new homes with other club members.

Above: A pair of Black Breda. The Breda The Breda is generally acknowledged to have originated in Holland, where until 1900, it was bred quite extensively. Although being good layers of large white eggs, they were mainly kept for meat, which is of very good quality and the birds fatten very well, especially the capons. The caponisation was mainly practiced in and around the city of Breda—and this is probably how they got their name—although they were also kept in other regions of Holland. From their appearance it seems they owe much to an Asiatic ancestry—while their cavernous nostrils indicate a heritage with crested breeds such as Polish, or with La Fleche. Unfortunately, we have no definite records as to the basis upon which the breed was formed. Apart from Holland they were also kept in northern France and Germany, and Edward Brown claimed in his book Races of Domestic Poultry (1906) they were also found in England and Spain.   The Dutch name for the breed is Kraaikop; the French name is Poule de Breda or Poule à bec de Corneille and in other countries they are known as Breda.    According to the Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities, Bredas also found their way to the United States, where they were known as Guelderlands or Guelders (another region of Holland), but they were never accepted into the APA standard.

Right: A cuckoo Breda cockerel. Photo AE. Breda fowls have two very rare traits: vulture hocks and are considered to have no comb. The females are completely combless and the males show only two small papillae located at the sides of the central line. According to the manner of transmission, Bateson and Punnett (1908) deduced that the dominant allele Bd+ is necessary for the development of a comb, and demonstrated that the Breda is endowed with two alleles D, responsible of the two minute lateral knobs of comb tissue on the head of the male and of the large cavernous nostrils characteristic for this breed. When crossing a Breda chicken with a bird having a single comb we could be amazed by the birth of chickens with a rose comb: evidently the gene R cannot carry out its action in Breda parent, since it is not endowed with the gene Bd+ responsible for the comb.

Left: Black Breda cock, Head study by Ch. Jacque, 1858. This is probably the best known drawing of this combless breed. One of the best descriptions of the Breda comb is by Charles Emile Jacque, in Le poulailler, monographie des poules indigènes et exotiques (1858): ‘The head of Breda has a quite particular aspect because of the shape of the comb, that causes a hollow rather than a prominence, and gives a characteristic depression to the beak. This absence of comb is much more interesting, being that with the wattles of a beautiful length it causes a contrast that is not noted in any other race. The comb has to have the shape of a small oval cup, rounded and a little bit bulging at the edges.

Situated at the base of the beak, it overhangs the nostrils according to the axis of the head, and is no longer than 1.5 cm with 1 cm of width. It sometimes has a blackish color and is slightly horny. In some birds the comb is transversal and shows small depressions on the external edges. This doesn't always point to a degeneration or a mixture of blood, but these characteristics are often the consequence of them. Therefore we always prefer the comb shaped as a small oval cup with unbroken edges.’

Right: Head study of a cuckoo pullet. Photo by

Elio Corti, taken at a Dutch Poultry Show.

According to Jacque, the Breda came in Black, White and Cuckoo; the latter often called Poule de Gueldre. The weight was 3.5 to 4 kg; the cuckoo variety being the heaviest and the white the lightest and mainly seen as a curiosity and fancy fowl.

Left: Blue Breda cockerel. The Breda is a large bodied fowl, well developed, with prominent breast, strong thighs and rather long legs, back broad and slightly sloping to the tail, the neck is medium length, covered with an abundant hackle; head short and appearing small due to the missing comb; with a stout, well-curved beak, which is horn coloured, lighter or darker according the plumage colour. A

(usually very small) tuft of curly feathers rises from the head at the rear of the flat depressed area where the comb should be. The earlobes are white and the wattles rounded and of medium length. The eye colour is orange-red to red-brown according the plumage colour. The thighs have vulture hocks and the legs are feathered on the outer side of the legs and toes. The leg colour is slate blue, varying with the plumage colour. The tail in the male is very abundant and carried medium high. Due to the introduction of more profitable breeds, the Breda were almost displaced. Although some attempts were made, the breed never regained its former position and was only kept as a fancy fowl. Today it is a rare breed. In the Netherlands the Breda is recognised in black, white, laced blue, cuckoo and mottled. Although they are still impressive, large birds, the weight is less than in the old days: 2.5 to 3.5 kg for males and 1.75 to 2.5 kg for females. Right: Blue Breda.

Left: Black mottled cockerel. Below: Black mottled pullet.

Henk on his Breda chickens Henk started breeding poultry in 1990, although he had taken care of the family chickens since he was about 10 years old. Around that time his father passed away, and Henk simply took over. Keeping fancy poultry and pigeons was a tradition in the family; his grandfather kept English Croppers; his father had been a very skilled Lakenfelder and Leghorn breeder and his younger brother kept ducks and was also a member of the local club. Henk sometimes entered a few of the chickens in his brother’s name, but in 1990 he too had joined the local breeders’ club and set his mind to breeding the Breda. Below: One week old chicks in various colours.

He still remembers the day he went to the poultry market in Barneveld—he had been told that he probably could buy Breda Fowl there—but all he could lay his hands on were 10 setting eggs of the Breda of which only one hatched. He returned to the market in the hope of buying at least one extra chick. The trader didn’t have any, but when he saw Henk’s chick was blue laced, he very much wanted to get it back—so Henk ended up empty handed. Sometime later he bought black Dutch Owl-beards—another rare breed—but the Breda kept haunting him. Finally, in 1995, with help of the BKU Breeders’ Club, he was finally able to get some Breda; first in the cuckoo variety. Over the years he gathered all colour varieties, including Breda bantams. So there he was:

the youngest Breda breeder of the BKU Club, and also very soon chosen as a board member. Left: Breda bantam cockerel. Some comb flesh at the base of the beak of the males is often seen, especially with the bantams. This is not desirable, but most judges are not too strict on this, as the Breda bantams are very rarely seen in shows. Photo Elio Corti.

Henk admits the breed never disappointed him. According to him they are calm birds and can even become very tame. More than once other breeders at shows noticed that his penned cockerels reacted when hearing his voice even when he was some distance away. However, they are quite quarrelsome amongst themselves—which is quite different from what is told and written—with even the hens being rather aggressive to each other. They seldom go broody—the bantams a bit more often than the large hens—so Henk always used an incubator. He said it takes quite some time before the males and females can be identified. Being large birds they need to have food that makes them grow quickly from the start. In his neighbourhood is a business that delivers feed with the required composition. Henk developed a crumble food that can be given from hatching until the beginning of the show season. This feed is now available commercially and breeders come from far and wide to buy it. Henk’s surplus chickens were sold to other local breeders and also abroad. He has always been willing to help other breeders as it is the only way to help the survival of rare breeds. Breeding Breeding a perfect Breda is not easy and Henk’s main aim was always to breed for correct type and size. He stresses that failure to also pay attention to the comb form can set a breeding program back for several years. The correct comb form—or missing comb—is very troublesome. Two birds without combs can hide the fact there was a comb somewhere in their genes, and combs appear in their offspring. It can take up to eight months before it shows in a cockerel, and by that time most of the others have been culled which unfortunately sets the breeding program back a year. Other faults which appear late are spurs on

pullets (or cockerels that don’t have any), crooked toes or a shortened outer toe. Henk sometimes crossed with la Flèche—a related breed—which boosted the size when the Breda became too small. Even with all those challenges, he kept on breeding the Breda. He had Blacks the longest and also the Blues— and he began trying to breed new colour varieties. The idea arose in 2000, when one of his black hens started growing white feathers. He mated her to a cuckoo male, expecting to get black and cuckoo offspring but all the chicks were mottled. Strangely they all died, except two from which he tried to breed. The first year they never gave any chicks and in the next year they did, but with deformed feet and such. Henk tried mating them with a blue cock, but that also didn’t bring the mottled colour that he wanted. Right: Result from crossing splash x splash. Too much white for ‘mottled’. The more difficult it was, the more he was determined to succeed. He set a target to have the Mottled Breda recognised in 2010—a target he met. Right and below: His pride; the mottled Breda.

Experimental colours Below: This is one of the chicks in the before photo on the left, now grown up. The colour of this pullet is—almost—gold blue laced. It originated spontaneously in my blue line. Other breeders also have seen this, but didn’t raise these chicks.

Left: A Khaki coloured cockerel. Below: This is the beginning of a new variety: yellow white mottled.

Henk: “This is how the colour started: I had given some of my white birds to another breeder, Ad Boks, who crossed them with black. From this combination he got a red-shouldered white cockerel. I took this bird and used him in my white Breda pen. Every now and then I noticed a chick with green legs, and these birds tend to get more or less yellow when grown. I bred them for several years in line and each year they became more self-yellow with less white. My two daughters Lisa and Nina called them the ‘Chicken tandoori’, because they had the same colour as the sauce that comes with that dish”.

Above and right: The first birds were sort of yellow white spangled. Below: Each year they became more self-yellow with less white.

Clubs and Shows Henk’s local club is A&O (Aalten and surroundings). He became board member shortly after joining the club and he still is. He is also a member of the Specialty Club of Breda breeders, the BKU Club of which he was also a board member for many years. Even though he has given up the fowls, he intends to stay a club member for the time being as the club has been a large part of his life for so long and the breed is still very dear to him. He is also a member of a German poultry Club. Henk is pleased that his chickens found

good homes with club members—even the mottled ones, which went to Van Ham, Oetelaar and Rap—while others went to German breeders. In Germany there are quite a few breeders of Breda bantams and at least five breeders of the large fowls; some of them having chickens from his line. Over the years Henk won many prizes, although this breed is hardly ever chosen by the judges as Best in Show. Still he once won Best of the Country with one of his black Breda, and also once with a cuckoo. At a European Breed Show he won Best in Show with a black hen, graded 97 points, which is the highest grade in Europe. At the European Show in Leipzig 2008 he won ‘Europameister’ with four of his black Breda. In his opinion, you can only promote yourself by participating at the shows, both European and abroad. With good birds; at least the average quality has to be good.

To end with Henk, in conclusion: ‘When you want to participate in this hobby, you have to do it right. For instance you have to wash the white chickens before entering. And now, with three children and a busy family life, I find I don’t have the time to do it properly. My parents always helped me by looking after my chickens when I was not around or simply couldn’t find the time to do it myself, but they are getting older and that is what finally made up my mind. I started looking for something which was easier to arrange, so I start keeping pigeons.

Didn’t I say my grandfather was a great English Cropper breeder? Well, I bought myself some Pygmy Pouters and I have built some aviaries in the backyard. When I am away, our neighbour—a homing pigeon man—will see to them.’ Above: The new aviary. Right: One of the Black pied Pygmy Pouters. Photos AE. The blackpied Pygmy Pouter I purchased of Mr. Groothof from Neede (NL). I also have another pair of Blackpieds and they are coming from Mr. Amenda. My latest purchase are the Cream with Bar from Mr. Beitelhoff and the Mealy with Bar from Mr. Zugehor, all these are German fanciers. It was W. Scheck who helped me find these Pygmy Pouters. I would also like to have Dilute Brown with Bar (Khaki), but at the moment, unfortunately I can’t get these. However, there are good contacts for the end of this year."

Below and right: Pied pigmy pouters, Mealy with Bar. Photos: Henk Lubbers.

Right: Cream with Bar pied. Below: Red pied. Photos: Henk Lubbers.

So we haven’t seen the last of Henk, I suppose. We wish him all the luck with this new endeavour.            

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