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The Chantecler Hen, a Historical Hen
The Quebec chantecler hen is one of only three heritage breeds in the province.
This is the story of a snow-white hen who loves snow and Quebec winters. A hen conceived here, loved as much for its eggs as its meat, but which, in this era when local cuisine and local products are popular, is still struggling to carve out a place for itself on our plates.
In Search of the (almost) Lost Chicken
Fortunately, the GPS was there to remind us to turn, at the bottom of the snowy row. We would have passed 5 times, 10 times, 100 times in front of Amélie Brien's farm without stopping there. Anonymous building in an ordinary row of Valcourt, which, however, hides one of the rarest farms in the province. Here, we toil with a little hope and a lot of effort to breathe new life into Quebec's Chantecler chicken, one of the province's only three heritage breeds.
Amélie Brien came out of the farm, her hands in her pockets, a broad smile on her lips, her cheeks reddened by the cold. She is barely 18 years old, she is 24 and runs an extraordinary business on her own: the largest Chantecler chicken farm in Quebec. About a thousand heads. This is no more than a dust in comparison to usual farms (35% of chicken producers in Quebec had more than 540,000 heads in 2009), but rare are the farms that have more than 100 chanteclers (there would be less than ten), and few farms have them, period.
It is certainly not, however, because the volatile lacks interest. In 1999, Quebec officially awarded it the title of "heritage breed", recognizing its historical and cultural importance.
Then, in 2009, an agreement was signed with the Federation of Poultry Producers to allow the establishment of 10 farms with a maximum of 500 Chantecler layers. It was necessary to act, notes Michel Lefrançois, professor in the department of agriculture at Laval University.
“The breed was in very great danger of extinction […]. Without the involvement of small breeders, the breed might already be extinct.”
Success Hen
The Chantecler chicken is the fruit of genetic work undertaken by Brother Wilfrid more than a century ago, who wanted to create a breed of "Canadian" hens, the feathered equivalent of the Canadian cow or the Canadian horse.
Crossing - among others - a Cornish rooster renowned for its hardiness with a Livorno hen, a good layer, he obtained a poultry that resisted our winters well, capable of laying eggs even when the light was at its weakest, endowed with a yield satisfactory for both eggs and flesh. She received the Standard of Perfection from the American Poultry Association in 1921. An object of pride, she was carried around from exhibition to exhibition, in Rome and Barcelona, until the beginning of the Second World War. Then it sank little by little into oblivion in favor of more productive breeds, either for meat or for laying eggs.
Amélie Brien became interested in it at the Saint-Hyacinthe Institute of Technology, by chance during a semester project. “I saw that there could be commercial interest,” she says.
The rarity of the product, the hoped-for public enthusiasm for exceptional poultry. Three years ago she started with just 20 chicks. "You can't buy 500 chantecler chicks, there just aren't any!" she remarks. She was lucky - the support of her parents, dairy farmers - but she does most of the work on her own, in addition to continuing to help out on the family farm.
Up at 5 a.m. every morning to milk her parents' cows, back at 8:30 a.m. at home to take care of her hens, harvest the eggs and wash them one by one, by hand, a job monk who steals from him 2-3 hours a day, then after a quick lunch, the afternoon deliveries, the maintenance of the farm, a new round of care for the hens, then the last train of the cows at his parents, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. And this, six days a week.
Amélie Brien loves her chickens, and it shows. They don't go outside, but they are free to move about in the barn and have up to five times more space than in a regular flock (3 hens/m2, compared to 15 on average), she explains. Laying hens are not sacrificed when their performance declines with age; broiler chickens are 16 weeks old instead of 6 when they go to the slaughterhouse. "They're not big chicks like in the conventional: they're mature," she says.
And yet, Amélie Brien does not hide it: the situation is difficult and it is not sure that she will last long at this rate. The marketing is difficult, the chicken, still little known and its distribution network, almost non-existent. Apart from a few farmers, it is almost impossible to buy a chantecler chicken.
High Price and Low Production
“Twenty years after the recognition of the heritage breed, we would be entitled to hope that chicken would be better known, more accessible, observes Bobby Grégoire, Slow Food International adviser for Canada. The difficulties are numerous, the volume is low, the breed unknown, the slaughterhouses are not adapted to these smaller format chickens.”
"The egg production and growth performance of this breed are not at all comparable to those of hens and broilers currently available on the market," adds Michel Lefrançois. The production costs are therefore probably much higher.” The consumer must indeed be prepared to pay more, as he would for organic poultry.
In the catering industry, it's not so much the price as the irregular supply that dampens the enthusiasm of the chefs.
“If they can provide me with it regularly, I will put it on the menu. Its flesh is firmer, tastier, distinctive,” explains Stéphane Modat, restaurant chef at Château Frontenac in Quebec.
However, at the Quebec Association of Chantecler Poultry, we hope that the situation will change soon. Its president, David Auclair, wants the 10 breeders holding a chantecler chicken marketing license to be able to produce their full quota in 2022, that is to say 42,000 kg of meat per year, or approximately 24,000 chickens per farmer.
“We must not go too fast so as not to saturate the market, but we know that the interest is there,” assures Mr. Auclair. Within two years, he says, it will be readily available on restaurant menus. In Estrie, a new breeder, Lynda Carreau, from the Noëka farm, has just reached an agreement with a food market (Coop d'Alentour) to distribute her chickens and fresh eggs there; she plans to increase the size of her herd tenfold by the summer so that it exceeds 1,000 head.
The dream of Bobby Grégoire, who would like the Chantecler chicken to be to Quebec what the Bresse chicken is to France - a famous poultry, but which can be bought at the public market on Sundays for meals with friends or family - , may finally be within reach.
"If that doesn't change, however, he warns, it's all know-how that will be lost, both for breeding and for cooking."
