THE FLEMISH CUCKOO Searching for their origin Text and photos: Norbert Schollaert (B) Part 4 - France It's actually hard to grasp, but in all (Flemish-speaking) documents about poultry and chicken breeds, the name Flemish Cuckoo is never mentioned. In order to learn something more about the origin of the Flemish Cuckoo, we had to search in France. February 15, 1891, Chasse et Pêche published an article titled: Our indigenous chicken breeds. A translated quote from the text: “... The poultry exhibitions have known such a development in Belgium that can match any other country. Maybe less often held, but with a lot more animals than exhibitions in England, except the Birmingham Dairy and Christal Palace Show. Last year we saw even one of the three Antwerp associations compete with them. There is no reason why Belgium would lose this place she held until now. The fanciers who do not want to make the journey to England can always visit our shows to see the best results of modern poultry farming. But to see the majority of popular breeds in England we ourselves do still have to go there, to keep up to date of what's new, because in England there are per breed twenty times more breeders than here in Belgium. This is because their poultry judges have more control than ours, have the power to change a type, and that their poultry is bred and reared by themselves. Because, let's not forget that the body type of the imported American chickens is changed further in England and those from England on the continent. Rightly or wrongly, we just state this to make clear that it is impossible to maintain the same standard that applies to England, America and the rest of the World. In Belgium, we have five or six native breeds that are distributed thousands of farms, used to our environment and our feed. The farmers know how to deal with it and know exactly which returns they can expect. So it is not difficult to encourage them to improve the breed and make it more attractive, just like they have improved their fruit trees and increased the harvest. We'll talk now about the two breeds that are the best in the world for us: the Malines, as meat chicken, and the Campine as a layer breed. The current Malines, same as the Wyandotte, is the product of a cross. The old cuckoo variety seems to have disappeared. At our exhibitions they have been replaced by the Scotch Grey and the Poule de Rennes. ………” Mr. E. Labbé (from Lompret - Northern France - the first ardent supporter of the breed and also the first who exhibited these chickens in Quesnoy-sur-Deûle in 1880) immediately responds with a letter to the editor on March 1, 1891 (Chasse & Pêche, 9th volume, N ° 22 - Page 217).. He says he has been working with this breed already for 12 to 13 years now and has tried to improve it all the time through continuous selection. On the farms he visited he saw often cuckoo chickens with clean white/pink legs. They were almost always hens, rarely a rooster. These chickens were outstanding layers of large sized eggs and according to Labbé it was worth trying to capture the traits of this variety. He finally found some cocks and began to breed and select; after a few generations already there was no more diversity in the offspring and both size and colour remained stable. The hens lay eggs 120/140 67/75 gram, no winter break. At four months time the pullets weighed 2.5kg while the adult males weighed up to 5 kg. (Author's Note: Today the weight is set on 3.5 kg). The meat was fine, delicate and particularly tender and white. At the exhibition, they did not score well because the jury wanted to see the same colour in both sexes, as in the Coucoo de Rennes (Rennes Cuckoo). However, in the Flemish Cuckoo this will never happen if one breeds the purebred chickens and does not outcross to other breeds. Moreover Labbé stated: "I think the Poule de Rennes has once upon a time been outcrossed to a black variety of a chicken breed, because some of their offspring are still black, which is never the case in the Flemish Cuckoo." Thus, the ‘gray’ Flemish still occurred at farms in Northern France in 1891, while in Belgium (Flanders) the breed had been sacrificed to the creation of ‘The Malines’. Left: Coucou de Rennes rooster in the Écomusée du pays de Rennes. Photo: Édouard Hue, Wikipedia. The published letter from Labbé was replied by Dr. E. Rame, a breeder living close to Rennes who didn’t agree with Labbé’s point of view concerning the colour. According Ramme, the Flemish Cuckoo is a Poule de Rennes with a poor colour, due to wrong selection and ignorance of the breeder. Thus, the debate was opened. (Today we know through DNA analysis that the Poule de Rennes is actually another race and that Labbé was right.) Rame added that cuckoo chickens actually occur everywhere, such as in England, where they are called Scotch Grey. (Today we know that this breed has a Mediterranean origin.) According to C. Dacheville, the English Scotch Grey reflects the Flemish Cuckoo and the English would have taken the Flemish Cuckoo home with them during the 100 years war to create their version of it. No wonder that both have the same DNA pattern. (This is yet another version than the one that is talking about emigrating Flemings, and more credible, as the Scotch Grey already existed at the time of emigrating Flemings.) Rame remain faithful to "his" breed for life, and also drafted the standard, to which the breed was recognized at March 31, 1914. Labbé entered his birds in France for the first time in the exhibition of Quesnoy- sur-Deûle in 1880 and immediately received recognition. In “Monografie des races de poules” by V. La Perre de Roo, 1892, page 33 (www.gallica.bnf.fr) the Flemish Cuckoo is described exactly as Labbé wrote, however, in this book they are called “Race de la Campine a crête simple” (Breed from the Campine region with single comb). La Perre de Roo wrote a few lines (page 233) on the Coucou de France (French Cuckoo) that was kept in another region of France than the Coucou de Rennes (Rennes Cuckoo) that was mainly kept in the region of Bretagne (Brittany). Illustration ‘Coucou de Flandres, cock and hen, from the book “Toutes les Poules et leurs variétés” by Delamarre De Mouchaux. He writes in great detail about the Asian varieties that then were new and obviously highly sought after, and further mentions the Coucou d'Ecosse (Scottish Cuckoo) - a chicken like the Dorking but with four toes instead of 5. About the ‘Coucou’ (page 33) he says: “This breed, one of the oldest in France, is widespread in Normandy, Belgium and England (Note: Is he here and now talking about the Flemish Cuckoo?) and is characterized by its white/pink legs and beak and cuckoo-coloured plumage. Unfortunately, there are only a few breeders interested in this breed. One distinguishes two types that differ from each other only by their comb shape”. (Note: a rose comb? This must be the Picardy cuckoo.) If La Perre de Roo is right than it might well be that the Flemish Cuckoo originated from the ‘pencilled’ fowls (like the Campine) and thus has been seen for centuries as a local variety. Moreover, the Flemish Cuckoo was a simple farmer’s fowl, which were not that much interesting and certainly were not mentioned in old writings, and since it was named many different names, this makes the search for its origins beyond impossible. In 1858 a book is published by C. Jacque, (a graphic designer, passionate by poultry) titled “Le Poulailler”, in which we find on page 246 several lines on the Coucou de Rennes, also called Coucou de Bretagne, and on the Coucou de France - possibly the latter could be the Flemish Cuckoo? Both varieties have their use as a farm fowl, but it seems the author knows very little about them, or they do not deserve to waste many words on. He argues that these cuckoo chickens are not two different breeds but only varieties of the same breed. Furthermore, he does not give me much courage as he writes: “It is impossible to find the origin of these breeds”. In “Toutes les Poules et leurs variétés” by Delamarre De Mouchaux, 1924, we find the Flemish Cuckoo in the section “Races a crête simple” (Breeds with single combs) on page 137 – 138. The author devoted two pages to the breed, of which one page constitutes the standard. All and all, he only manages to say that the Flemish Cuckoo is the basic form of the Malines and for that he refers to Mr. Vander Snickt. To give you an idea of the importance of this breed in the author's mind: his description of the Bresse chicken is about 30 pages. On the Rennes chicken, he manages to say: “These cuckoos are kept in Bretagne (Brittany), Normandy and Northern France under the names Coucou Picarde, Coucou de France, Coucou de Flandres and in England as the Scotch Grey, which is probably used to create the cuckoo variety of the Dorking”. He admits that the Flemish Cuckoo is closer to the original type. Op 12/01/1896 appears an article in Chasse et Pêche titled “Les Volailles du Nord de la France”.