Save the chickens: Mottled houdan, shown at Yellow House Farm in Barrington, is one of “three French hens,” along with the white houdan and the crevecoeur, the oldest French breed, believed to have originated in the Middle Ages.At Yellow House Farm in Barrington, the air is filled with a cacophony of bird calls. The high squawk of a guinea hen, the honk of a Shetland goose, the cluck of a La Fleche chicken.
Some wander around in all their glorious plumage, a huge tom turkey puffs up to what seems like twice his size, and the shimmer on the feathers of the black Cayuga ducks becomes iridescent in the sunlight.
These are all breeds of poultry that might have disappeared if not for people like Joseph Marquette and Robert Gibson, who are saving them for us and for future generations.
"Almost everything here is critically endangered," says Joseph Marquette. "When breeds deplete, fertility goes down. It's the effect of in-breeding. DNA thrives on variety so we have to preserve as many breeds as possible. It's like with the cheetahs, they could go extinct with one disease. Our only hope is to breed them."
Marquette and Gibson's mission to save these heritage poultry breeds began as a hobby. Marquette speaks more than 10 languages and teaches French and Italian (he often speaks Italian to the chickens), while Gibson is a veterinary microbiology expert at the University of New Hampshire, but they spend many hours a day with the chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other poultry in order to preserve the breeds and sell them for meat, eggs, and for others to raise themselves.
"It's a passion. We both grew up with homesteading parents with gardens and poultry in the family," says Marquette.
Now, they are preserving breeds that go back as far as Ancient Roman times.
"The La Fleche come from a village in the valley of La Sarthe in France. The earliest records date from the 1500s. You can see them in the artwork and the literature of the time," says Marquette. "The guinea fowl are from Africa and go back to the Ancient Greeks."
The Narragansett turkeys are also critically endangered, and are still capable of breeding naturally. The breed was particularly popular this past Thanksgiving and will sell out quickly this year, which begs the question, If we want to preserve the breeds, why are we eating them?
"This is a very important concept," says Marquette. "These are farm animals. They exist for use on a farm. People purchase factory produced birds and they're reduced to a few breeds, but there are many, many breeds all on the verge of disappearing because we don't eat them. Very few people keep chickens just to look at. There is the need to breed."
While there are many breeds wandering around the farm, these are the breeds the two have basically rejected as breeders, and those selected for qualities like size are segregated in coops. They also look for spots and markings, and for good egg layers.
"We take the very best and the others have to go somewhere — we've re-introduced these breeds to our table and that also perpetuates the breed," says Marquette.
Marquette and Gibson have found breeds that were almost erased from the planet.
"The white houdan were believed to be extinct. Six years ago there was one flock in Mississippi and they were saved by the Sand Hill Preservation Center. There was 150 in the entire country."
The white houdan is one of the "three French hens" along with the mottled houdin and the crevecoeur, the oldest French breed, believed to have originated in the Middle Ages. Marquette says the meat of these chickens differs greatly from each other, but differs even more greatly from commercial supermarket chickens.
"The mark of quality breast meat is the white meat and the fine grain. It's just delicious ...; you have to cook them the old-fashioned way, in a dutch oven, in enamel ware. It's easy as pie in a dutch oven with olive oil, rosemary."
The variety is not just great for eating but also for looking at. The aesthetic qualities of the breeds is fascinating as well. The male La Freche for example, has small horns like a devil while others like the crevecoeur sport fluffy crests. The white dorkin is large and blindingly white, a breed that originated in Ancient Rome.
"Columella was an agricultural historian writing in 100 AD. His is the earliest reference to the white dorkin. Even in the Renaissance they talk about it as an ancient breed."
The two began raising the poultry about three years ago, clearing the land of trees and setting up a small village of coops, breeding and laying houses for the various stages in the life of a breed, still the birds are in danger from hawks, eagles, and even a bobcat.
But now it's hatching season. They have eggs from a farm in Illinois for a colored dorkin and are raising ducks and chickens for eggs to sell at the Barrington farmers market, and in Durham, Dover and Exeter as well as for meat. They'll also continue to seek out endangered breeds and do their part to save these breeds.
"Some of them are down to almost nothing," says Marquette. "We have to create interest and perpetuate these breeds."
