Pecking pedigrees

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Staff photo by Don Himsel
A three-week-old speckled Sussex being raised by the Valentines.

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Staff photo by Don Himsel
Dave and Jennifer Valentine raise unique chickens and roosters with unique physical characteristics sought out by living history museums. Also, the pair raise heirloom vegetables.

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Staff photo by Don Himsel
Destiny is the name of this American Dominique, one of several breeds of chickens raised by Dave and Jennifer Valentine. It's bred for the historical accuracy of its straight comb.

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Staff photo by Don Himsel
Jennifer Valentine.

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Staff photo by Don Himsel
Dave and Jennifer Valentine raise unique chickens and roosters with unique physical characteristics sought out by living history museums. Also, the pair raise heirloom vegetables.

Enlarge Purchase Photo

Staff photo by Don Himsel
Inside the Valentines' homemade greenhouse

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Staff photo by Don Himsel
A three-week-old speckled Sussex being raised by the Valentines.

Enlarge Purchase Photo

MONT VERNON – With names like Yellow-Belly, Fuzzy, Destiny, Crow and Crow Junior, they’re fascinating little critters, romping, chortling and pecking the day away in their mini-A-frame homes behind a modest, beige colored New Englander just outside of town.

But the most remarkable trait of this rather unusual breed of livestock has to be their endurance: They’re hundreds of years old.

But don’t bother rushing over to Dave and Jennifer Valentine’s backyard to see what such ancient chickens look like. The couple, who runs Valentine & Sons Seed Co. out of their Francestown Turnpike home, also breed and raise heirloom chickens, a vocation best described as preserving and perpetuating historical breeds of chickens and roosters in order to save them from extinction.

The Valentines’ birds, among them the American Dominiques named above, are exact duplicates of those that represented the purest examples of their respective breeds when they roamed the earth as many as several centuries ago.

So while they have quite the family tree, the Valentines’ birds aren’t centenarians, by a long shot.

What they are, though, is a flock of hardy, unusually healthy chickens – remember, their direct ancestors are chickens and roosters of the pre-chemical and cross-breeding-for-food-and-profit era – that are not only easy and fun to raise, the Valentines say, but have become a precious commodity among living history museums and other places where historical accuracy is a must.

Take Old Sturbridge Village, for instance. Until recently, the central Massachusetts destination that celebrates early 19th-century New England life raised its own heirloom chickens, near-flawless replicas of the so-called “straight comb” birds of the period. But when recent funding cutbacks forced the village to drop its heirloom chicken-raising operation and hunt elsewhere for the birds, Dave Valentine got the call, and just days later four of his “straight-combs” were on their way to Sturbridge.

“There’s something very satisfying about helping to keep heritage breeds alive,” Valentine said. “It gives us a sense of saving something. Once they’re extinct, they’re gone forever.”

A graduate of Rhode Island College, Dave Valentine majored in history before switching, for practical purposes, to computer programming. Jennifer, originally from North Carolina, is a veterinarian technician, having majored in applied animal science at University of New Hampshire. Today the couple blends their education and passion for creating and growing – Dave works days as a computer programmer (“Seeds and chickens alone don’t pay the bills,” he says), while Jennifer tends the coops and gardens and takes care of their two young sons.

Dave Valentine started it all about five years ago, buying and selling heirloom seeds out of their previous home in Amherst. They added the chickens when they moved to Mont Vernon about three years ago.

“Keeping chickens is sort of the new ‘in’ thing,” Dave Valentine said, as more and more people, especially in rural areas and small towns where there’s more space, turn to raising their own food and growing their own vegetables. While backyard garden patches have always been quite common, a combination of the current economic climate and general trend away from store-bought produce and other foods has inspired a new wave of first-time backyard gardeners and the expansion of existing gardens, the Valentines said.

In addition to museums such as Old Sturbridge, individuals and families are beginning to show interest in keeping heritage chickens, Dave Valentine said. “People with historic homes, for instance, will buy breeds that were around when their house was built,” he said. Entities that put on education programs, such as kids’ school vacation agricultural programs, have also begun seeking the period-perfect birds. “Nothing better than being able to see the real live thing,” Valentine said. “It beats a picture.”

Last year, the couple debuted a springtime farm stand, which is set up next to their house at 27 Francestown Turnpike. It returns this month, featuring everything from flowers to heirloom plants and vegetables, along with eggs and other goods. The stand will be open the next two Saturdays, May 21 and 28, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.

Inside the Valentines’ cozy home, steady peeping mixed with scratching sounds came from a large box in the kitchen. It’s full of newborn chicks, in the process of being weaned for transfer outside.

Dave Valentine leads a visitor to a bathroom, which doubles as a nursery. Removing the cover to an incubator, Valentine points to 10 or so eggs rotating slowly on rollers. “These are very rare,” he said, describing this particular breed of soon-to-be chicks as Red Dorkings.

In heirloom chicken circles, the name carries a lot of weight: “They date back to Roman times,” said Jennifer Valentine, palpably excited. “They’re very, very hard to get.”

Out back, a tour of the coops shows a pair of homemade A-frames pitched just enough to ward off snow accumulation. They shelter the clucking and crowing animals when necessary, which isn’t very often, the Valentines say: Because of their robust ancestral roots, they need very little in the way of creature comforts.

“At first, they shocked me at how hardy and easy to care for they really are,” Jennifer Valentine said. “The chickens keep laying (eggs) no matter what, whether they’re injured or even when it’s below zero out here.”

Indeed, the only heat source in the coops is a 65-watt light bulb, and that’s only to keep their drinking water from freezing in winter, Dave Valentine said. “These gals lay and hatch with an average 80 percent fertility rate,” he said, which is higher than most “normal” breeds.

And the eggs that end up on the breakfast table rather than hatching chicks are healthier overall than store-bought eggs, he said. Similarly, the flocks’ “meat birds” make a far tastier roast or sandwich than so-called production birds, those raised en masse solely for volume sales to food wholesalers.

The downside to production birds, Valentine said, is their relative lack of vitamins and minerals and undependable egg production, a price farmers and producers pay for decades of cross-breeding. “People want larger, juicier chicken breasts, so that’s what producers give them,” he said. “But the process taxes the birds’ bodies. It also caused egg production to fall.”

For more about Valentine & Sons Seed Co. and their heirloom vegetables and chickens, go to www.vnsseed.com, or see their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/VNSSEED.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.