Hi from Canada

[Lindy Lou]

Hi I am part of a group attempting to increase the numbers of the Euskal Oileo or Basque chickens originally from the Basque region of Spain. It is virtually impossible to get eggs/birds directly from Spain due to our import laws. I am now attempting to see if I can locate any breeders in the UK or France/Germany as we can import from these countries without the high level of difficulty. If anyone on this forum or anyone who knows of anyone raising these wonderful chickens please contact me. Our gene pool is very small, all our birds in both the US and Canada come from original stock brought into Canada by one person. There are five different types of the Euskal, we here presently only have the Marrudunas in any numbers.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
PS I originally came from England having lived in both Cornwall and Yorkshire. All my husbands family still live in Cornwall so I am often over there.
LL

 

[Marigold]

Hi Lindy Lou, and a big welcome to the Forum. What an interesting request. I've never seen any Basque chickens, and would be very interested if you could post a pic or two so we could see what you were looking for.
Which partb of Canada do you live in? What's the climate like there, for keeping chickens? Do you have to teach them to ski?

 

[chrismahon]

Hi Liny Lou and welcome. Are thse chickens called by a different name in UK as i have never heard of them? Perhaps the answer is to get a breeder in Spain to smuggle the eggs to a breeder in England who then hatches and rears them before export to you. How's your Spanish?

 

[Lindy Lou]

I live in Ontario in an area called West Grey. We are quite close to Lake Huron/Georgian Bay. I will post you a link to photographs of Euskal
www.euskalroots.eu/es/bienvenidos.html.
They are a wonderful bird, very friendly, good foragers,excellent mothers and hardy which is important here in Canada. We are having an unseasonally warm winter this year but usually we would have about 3-4 feet of snow and -20 degree cold. We have to be very careful about housing our birds away from drafts and watching for frostbitten combs.
We also want to be very cautious about where our eggs and birds etc come from as the whole population is very small and keeping everyone healthy is one of our prime objectives.
Anyway do research these great birds and I bet you'll fall in love with them like we have.
Thanks for the warm welcomes
LL