Talking Crevecour with Michelle Burns
Michelle is back and talking Crevs. The devil birds I call them! What a fun episode.
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Carey: 0:00
Hello, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the exciting world of poultry. Sit back and get ready for some eggciting interviews and some foul facts on this episode of Poultry Nerds. Thanks for tuning in.
Jennifer: 0:31
We're here with Michelle Sullivan Burns. Welcome back, Michelle. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. And today we're going to talk about your other breed. So the first time we talked about Langshans. And this time we're going to talk about Crevacours. Crevacour.
Michelle: 0:50
Crev
Jennifer: 0:51
kia.
Michelle: 0:52
What is the
Carey: 0:53
right way to say it? You
Michelle: 0:54
can say Crevacour. I've heard Crevacaware. Crevies. Crevs. Crev kia.
Carey: 1:00
Oh, yeah. Crev, that's me right there.
Michelle: 1:03
Crev kia. It means broken heart. Aww. In French.
Carey: 1:07
Aww.
Michelle: 1:08
And yes, say aww, because their story is rather inspirational. Aww. On who they are or what they are for a bird. But yeah,
Jennifer: 1:17
we all need inspirational stories. So tell us about
Michelle: 1:21
this okay long story short french breed one of the older french breeds up there with was it, some people say La Fletche, La Flesh, I'm up there with them. Okay World War II, the Nazis are coming through northern France, through France. And they came down through Creve, which is just not even I, if I looked at it correctly in the map was about 30 kilometers from Normandy. And then they came through, of course they were eating and pillaging everything come to, as they went through those towns, the townspeople took them and went underground with them of these birds because they are a dual purpose bird and they saved them from being killed off pretty much. At one point in America. In the USA here, there was less than 100 of them. Great quality. Yes. And that was only in, let's say, I want to say that was like 2008, 17 or 18. Oh, wow. Yes. Oh, extremely recent. Extremely recent. Yes. Of course there's more, that's more of just a shortened version of the story, but it's rather inspirational of how how they are. They're part of the Livestock Conservancy, which I forgot to mention that about Langston too. They're both so Krebs are on the Livestock Conservancy right now. They're not like under critical or anything, but they used to be at critical level. So just from 2017 to now, there's over a thousand of them in the USA now.
Jennifer: 2:55
I have to tell you, I had to look up in my standard of perfection, the picture of them, and, yeah. You when we were texting back and forth, I was like, Oh, I know that bird. That's the devil bird. Because it's comb. So what kind of comb is that? That is a V comb. The V comb. I'm sorry? It's a V comb. Just
Michelle: 3:18
A V comb. Just let's say, LaFletche A whodun, some polish. Yep.
Jennifer: 3:25
It's a V comb. So that we're going to get a little technical just because I want to be nerdy for a second. So that one, is it recessive like a single cone? Or no, they all have it.
Michelle: 3:37
They should know. They should all have it. If you get, don't get me wrong, they come out funky if there's too much weird breeding going on. Okay. I have one that, but yes It's it's there, it's, and sometimes they're big, and sometimes they're little, but the bigger, not too big, but yeah, they're there.
Jennifer: 3:54
So since this is a podcast and they can't see us, they look like devil horns to me in the picture.
Michelle: 3:59
LaFletche, just like LaFletche, yes, exactly. They are. That's I'm excited when I saw them. And that's how that's how that started actually. I know we talked about that before, like, how do you get your start? I was literally, I saw something post on marketplace two roosters for free. And I messaged her and I said, Oh, you have two roosters. And this was like January of 18. And I said, she's literally two streets over. Oh, hold on two country streets over. That way. And and I went over there. This is exactly what I said. She goes, I go that one's a Polish. And I go, and I looked down, I go, what the hell is that? And literally, what the hell is that? And she's I have no idea. And she looked it up and we did, I'm like, I think it's a, she goes, she said at the, it's a crevy crever. I'm like, okay. I, so I took it home and I named him Tommy Lee. Because I am, I'm a predator of the eighties. 1987, I was 14 years old in love with Motley Crue and Metallica. So the heavy metal person in me came out and I go, I need that bird. I need it now. And it's black. It's fantastic. And I need it. And I took it home. And he literally he only just died just like literally this year. So he like outlived, like all these other birds. And but with regards to that's how I found out more about hatchery. He, He is the one that started it. Tommy Lee. He's the one that started for me understanding hatchery to quality or hatchery or breeder quality. I then I did get another crab from a friend of mine, another female. I named her Pam. So Tommy Lee.
Carey: 5:30
Nice.
Michelle: 5:31
Pam is still with us. Pam is still with us. Pam and Tommy Lee had a baby. I named him Lefarious. I called him and I looked at them and then I'm like, Can I get better? And I want to get better. I want to get that breed better. Who do I talk to? Asked around. And then of course, Sue Dobson's name came up and that's how I got in touch with someone referred me to Sue. I reached out. And then I got some eggs from her and that was 2000 fall 19. Yeah, fall 19, 20 or spring. No, I did get in touch with her fall. I got new, I got eggs from her in 20, early 20. And Ooh, that was interesting because we started, that was, no, it was 21. It was 21 because we lost power. We lost power. It was the The Armageddon year. Remember we had that real bad storm. Okay. So it was 21. We lost power and one egg hatched and I named him Neo and Neo is actually, if you just got, if you saw Jeff Duguay's book on Paul Crested, that's him, he's on the front. He's a, that's my Neo. He was the only one that hatched. And I was addicted because when he got bigger and I sent that picture to Sue and she goes, that, that is what you want. Because Tommy Lee looks nothing like that. He looked, he was, hatchery quality of course, he was smaller, his head was smaller, he had these two little boop, and then Neo came out and he's over here rockin it, and I'm like, I need more of these birds. I fell in love with him. Neo died that summer. That was, that's when we started having really hot summers, but I took La Faire to my first show in West Texas. I took one bird. I went to the West Texas State West Texas Fair and Rodeo, which is not the Abilene show, just the regular, like a really smaller show. I won my first show. I didn't win my first show. Excuse me. I won my first blue ribbon. I was hooked showing completely. I went and I got my picture taken. Like people do with their cows. And someone goes, are you getting your picture right taken? I go, you're damn right I'm getting my picture taken. With my chicken, who I just showed my first ever show. I won a blue ribbon. I don't care how many people were there. I was the only one with a crev in the continental class. That's not the point. That's not the point. I was like, I'm, literally, I got hooked immediately. And I said, Sue I have to have this breed. I have to have more of them. I must dominate the world. And I'm like, I need them. I need them. And from there I got, she I got three fabulous females from her. Fabulous. Come to find out, one of them, which, Sue has a bad, not saying, I call it a bad habit for her, but she likes to give out her best. Um, birds to people. She gave me her Shawnee winner, Oklahoma state winner of 2020. She gave her to me. I'm like, are you kidding me? I named her Shawnee. Shawnee is still alive. She has, she's produced a lot of babies for me. And from there between Shawnee and Hara, I have won multiple large fowls, multiple champion continentals here in Texas, and I'm straight up addicted. I. CREV all the way, power to the crest, you
Jennifer: 8:49
can't pronounce it. Just call it
Michelle: 8:50
CREV, CREV, just call them CREV, C R E V CREV. I love them. I know I'm talking a lot. I could talk about these guys even longer. I think just from their the way they look, first of all, I find them. Intriguing, I find them just where the Lancashire was more statuesque, these guys look a little I know it's gonna sound funny, they look apocalyptic to me, almost like steampunk. I have to, it's just, and and their requirements are the same almost for Langston. When I say that I'm talking about, for the black feathering for showing, gonna have more of that green beetle color, no purple. And they are a talker at shows. Okay.
Jennifer: 9:31
So let's. Let's describe these birds since people are just listening. Cause you're talking with your hands for everybody that's listening, talking with their hands. I'm not
Michelle: 9:40
sorry. I'm not sorry. Oh yes. I'm sorry if you're listening.
Jennifer: 9:43
So these are large fowl.
Michelle: 9:45
Yes. And they come in Bantam. Oh,
Carey: 9:48
yeah. Okay. They do
Michelle: 9:50
come in Bantam and that's. Angela Cruz or Angela Hand is working on that.
Jennifer: 9:57
So to me, they look a lot like a Polish.
Michelle: 10:00
Okay. Interesting about that. There's no Polish in them. They've actually had DNA testing done on them. There's no Polish. They're their own breed.
Jennifer: 10:09
Side by side in the SOP. And I have them laid out right here. And the tail of course is bigger, but golly, they look just like a Polish.
Michelle: 10:17
But they're deeper. They should be very deep. They should be very dorking deep. I've heard that term before. They should be, when you look at the side, we're talking about, you should only see this much of their leg. You shouldn't see, like Polish, you see this much of their leg in a crib, you should only see the like knee down instead of thigh.
Jennifer: 10:36
Okay. I see the deeper chest. Okay. See the deeper chest. Yeah. Okay. But for just people listening they know what most people know what a Polish looks like, the big palm on top of their head.
Michelle: 10:47
It's
Jennifer: 10:49
true.
Michelle: 10:49
Very called globulous. It's very, This way where, okay. So the difference with Craig, if you look the whole, even their eyes and then their beard should be covering their waddles and their ear lobes.
Jennifer: 11:06
Okay. So they have a beard. Does a Polish have a beard? I don't, I'm not familiar with the Polish coming both bearded and non bearded. Okay. So I'm looking at this. It looks like he has a beard and he has like big poofy cheeks. Yes. Yes. And then he has hair, right?
Michelle: 11:22
Females my females have better beards than the males. Absolutely. They look like
Jennifer: 11:28
yeah They look like they're from an 80s hair band.
Michelle: 11:31
Thank you. Yes
Jennifer: 11:33
What color do you race and what color did they come in?
Michelle: 11:37
Okay, they come in they we're talking black is the main variety approved by the apa in france though in france You'll see them in cuckoo, blue, and white. I would love a cuckoo crev. Oh my god. That's just like a yellow, like
Jennifer: 11:55
a lemon. No, cuckoo
Michelle: 11:56
like a barred rock. Sorry.
Jennifer: 11:59
Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, cool. I'm friends with a
Michelle: 12:03
couple of the guys with, through, through Sue. The French guys over there that show them. It's I was like, yeah, they come in some great, I'm like, I need those too. But, my husband would kill me. Yeah, the cuckoo color is crazy, but the white is they, on the white though, they call them sport. That's a sport, if you see the white.
Jennifer: 12:20
And maybe Carey knows more about this than I do from Rip, but I think anything that, that throws out a white, it could be a deer, a whale, it doesn't matter what it is. If it just throws out a white one, that's just called a sport. Oh, it's always
Michelle: 12:34
called a sport. Oh I learned something new. Okay.
Jennifer: 12:36
What is, it's slang, right? Calling it a sport?
Michelle: 12:40
I think that's a good question. I've just always, I've only heard the term sport. I've only heard the term sport only used in crev. I've never heard the word sport because white lynchian or white lynchian, because it's a printed improved color. I've never heard that with regards to crowd. Never. I've only heard the word sport.
Jennifer: 12:58
Yeah, I think that's just what they're calling their anomaly. So I I had my, I have black coachins. And I had two whites hatched out last year. They both died. Within, one died within a day and the other one died like within two weeks. But yeah, they weren't right. Something was off with them.
Michelle: 13:15
They're pretty cool looking. Cause if you even look at that APA, even if you just look at CREV, like if you type in CREV or on like just an image search on Google, you're going to get varieties between like 1850 and 1880. You'll see them come like this, but the males, But then you see some that are crazy hair. So interpretation on that, because I have some that are wispy, that they go back like this, but man, Vinny up there, his name is Vincent Van Gogh. One of my favorites.
Jennifer: 13:42
You would have been perfect to start our YouTube channel with because of all your
Michelle: 13:47
descriptions. I like to keep going. Okay. So like I said okay. So there's Vincent Van Gogh, there's Gus. Shawnee. I've got Vivian. No, Vivian passed away. So I got her kid Sophia. Oh yeah, I've got Tiberius. Maximus. Keep going. I can keep going. I get all the cool names, but
Jennifer: 14:03
yeah. Tell us about the birds themselves. So
Michelle: 14:06
what are the black skin, it looks like? They do not have black skin. It's gray. Okay. It's like a light gray. I can't. Yeah. It's like gray. Not like silky black. No. More like just an off. It's not white. It's not white. It's just gray. It looks like they have really bad dry skin, but they don't. You're I love
Carey: 14:31
the descriptions.
Michelle: 14:32
Thank you.
Carey: 14:34
They're spot on.
Michelle: 14:36
what's interesting is they do lay a cream egg. A cream colored egg. They don't lay a lot and they're horrible mothers. Except for one. I have one girl that went broody on me. So I gave her five Langston babies that I hatched out from my boy Maximus. So she has those babies. She's been pretty good. They're horrible. They lay less than maybe 150 eggs a year. They like to die. They'll just decide to die anytime. Look, I'm three days old. I'm dead. Look, I'm six weeks old. I'm dead. Nope, they die. Then they wonder why their numbers are so low. Because they keep freaking dying. Okay,
Jennifer: 15:20
so should they live to adulthood? How big do they get?
Michelle: 15:24
Okay okay, Vinny. It is big. Vinny is not, he's big. I'd say Vinny is, if last time I weighed him, I think he's right at six and a half, seven pounds. Eight pounds is really nice. Because again, they are a dual purpose bird. Originally they are, you can eat them. But they're not like thick heavy. They're just like, but you can eat them. It'll be a decent snack. It's not it's like
Jennifer: 15:46
chicken, right?
Michelle: 15:47
It's like chicken, but yeah, they're fun. I like them. Okay. Their characteristic is all over the place. This is probably why I like them. They have ADHD. I have ADHD. We get along fabulously. They are spastic in the cages. Now it depends on the bird. Sometimes you want to go double cage with them. Sometimes you can't. Vinny, I can go double cage. His tail is long. His tail goes way beyond. Actually in the book that Jeff just did there's that picture of Vinny with that tail. That's him. No, that, yeah, that's him. That's Gus. No, that's Gus. Either way, that tail is so long. It seems like it just goes like this. And but they're not they're skittish. a little psychotic, you know, and I've tried everything to try to tame that down in them. But however, I do have noticed though, other than me losing Neo The heat has not really bothered them. Oh, that's nice in Texas. And same for Langshin. I've been trying to, there's a part of me that is almost letting them stay out there and whoever wins the game of life out there. When I, because if I can get me some good heat tolerant, large fowl of Krev and Langshin, that would, that's a huge deal down here. If I can get them to get that gene going where it, it was 105. Five. And Tiberius is still out there hanging out inside the fam. He's this is great.
Jennifer: 17:14
I'm doing the same thing with the Cochins, they can't I had them shipped down from New York
Michelle: 17:19
and
Jennifer: 17:19
I'm four generations in and I need them to be heat tolerant, I got the heat.
Michelle: 17:24
They all have the cages. When it comes to that, then, like I said, that could be a whole separate podcast just around solar fans. I have got, there's going to be at least 500, 600 Watts out there pumping out fans and big fans. Big fans. You're talking like fans off of trucks. My husband's a truck mechanic. We're talking like off of Mack trucks. Those big, hooked straight to, sun up, sun down. Those fans are blowing. Even on my crevs.
Jennifer: 17:52
These flighty, spastic, pom headed birds, can you free range them, or will they stand out there and wait for a hawk to come get them?
Michelle: 18:00
Oh, no! They will free range. They do very well free way, free range. Extremely well. I don't, on those specifically I have not chose to eat in any of my crevs. I just let the gate open and go, good luck, enjoy. But I keep them. But, everybody stayed. And they do not get, they're pretty smart though. That's the best part. They're smart. They're very smart though. Everybody on my, so my other roosters will get taken by a hawk or we have an owl problem here. But no, they're pretty on that end. They're pretty smart. They'll stick around.
Jennifer: 18:32
So obviously they've been accepted by the APA because I'm looking at their pictures in the
Michelle: 18:36
book.
Jennifer: 18:37
Okay. And you show them in the show. Can you buy these birds from a hatchery? Can you get hatchery quality? Actually,
Michelle: 18:46
McMurray has them. Hoover has them. And I think between the two, McMurray has a better quality.
Jennifer: 18:55
On a side note, and I don't know if this is true about the Krebs, but I read in the newsletter the other day from the APA that McMurray Hatchery is getting more flock certified. I didn't read what breeds they were. But yeah, maybe you should edit that out. I don't know. Yeah. All right. And then dual purpose, you said you haven't eaten yours yet.
Michelle: 19:19
I've no, but you can though. If you follow the Livestock Conservancy they, on their pages, they talk about butchering them and they are, and at one point they are a delicacy. They're, their flesh is a little different. I have not experienced it, but I've read. That their flesh isn't like, how like you would talk about chili on the other ones, they say they're not chewy. It's like I say over and it would be a delicacy where that is. I've only read that once and it was on the livestock conservancy. So I don't know where they got that reference. That'd be interesting. It may not
Jennifer: 19:53
taste like chicken.
Michelle: 19:55
It tastes like a better chicken than regular chicken. I'm just teasing a better non chicken than chicken, a better chicken that tastes like chicken, but not really, but better than chicken. This is great. I'm going to go home with a stomach
Carey: 20:09
ache. You are
Michelle: 20:10
cracking me up. You
Jennifer: 20:12
know, hopefully our listeners are cracking up driving down the road too and then the people in the other car are looking at them weird. I'll send you a link to
Michelle: 20:21
another podcast, my first ever podcast, that was drinking with chickens. I'll send you that because we talked about how someone's decided to steal an egg from Out of the Fort Worth Stock Show. Some actually, yeah. We'll talk about
Jennifer: 20:36
it.
Michelle: 20:36
So
Carey: 20:38
that, you would think that sounds crazy. But that actually, there were some issues with that at the Ohio National this past year.
Michelle: 20:46
Really?
Carey: 20:47
Yes. See,
Jennifer: 20:53
I don't even think like that. Why?
Carey: 20:55
So As a breeder, when you have your bird there and an egg comes out, you'll take it and you'll put it in the cage or in something right below it where your stuff is on the table. There are people that were putting them in their pockets and keep walking.
Jennifer: 21:09
For those people, those are probably not fertilized eggs because the only way to keep a bird in condition is to not let a rooster in with'em. Yeah.
Michelle: 21:18
Haha on you, right?
Carey: 21:19
Yeah, really.
Michelle: 21:22
My audio, my, my video got stuck there. That's weird. I don't like it. But yeah that's actually the per and then the person who did that actually at the stock show, it was a, it wasn't even a breeder. It's just a regular per because that's open up to everybody put it in their pocket and then took pictures of what they did, said what they did. And posted it on Facebook. And another thing you might know about me is I am a screenshot lover. I will screenshot the shit out of that. And I kept that, I kept it. And I shared it with a few friends. I said, look what I just found. And it decided to blow up a little bit and she got kicked out of the group that she was the admin in here in Fort Worth. And it was a big thing.
Jennifer: 22:05
I'm going to tell you a little story. I have a follower of my farm page out of Texas and she sent me a picture out of one of the local groups down there. And I was so amazed by this picture. This lady who, and I don't have a clue who it was had a really nice house. You could tell by the finishings and the chandeliers and stuff. And she put up a chain link dog kennel in her dining room underneath the chandelier and put her chickens in there because it's too hot outside. I posted a picture of what not to do. I did not know who that picture belonged to. I have no clue who it belonged to. Lady posted the picture posted. Apparently she was a follower too. And she's I didn't even know.
Michelle: 22:56
Oh my. Oh, y'all
Jennifer: 22:58
are a little cuckoo down there in Texas. But she deleted her comments really quickly.
Michelle: 23:05
That's what happens. And then people obviously, they delete things and, okay. But yeah, screenshots last, I put that, I go hashtag screenshots are forever.
Jennifer: 23:13
Yeah. so if somebody wanted to get started with these crevs crevicore, how do you get started with them? Contact you for, I
Michelle: 23:25
do, I do breed. There are people that are very selective on who they give their eggs to, because we do, when I say selective, if you want just a regular I have no problem, giving you a couple of my culls, Hey, have a couple of these, but I'm pretty, I don't mean to be selective, but this breed particularly that has less than X amount anyways, that's out there. I just don't want them to just, I don't want them all out there willy nilly. I really don't. And talking with Sue, she's pretty much the same. I will troll someone's page until they're, all trolled out. If I'm going to send them, eggs or even birds, but they, on the livestock conservancy, you can actually go, there is a breeder network, but if you want quality seat, Sue has French line,
Carey: 24:11
Chris.
Michelle: 24:12
That's the thing you can get. You've been, they've already been bred down, but so on other, like I said, there's hatchery quality. Now they did probably, we found out they're putting Polish in with them. And the main thing, the only reason how you can tell you they're putting Polish with them is because you could tell by their crest, because I really, you can look right at that and go, that has Polish in it. You can look at the legs and go, that has Polish in it. You can look at the body and say, okay, that has Polish in it. And I don't. If you don't want that, then you have to go to a breeder. Sue also, I think has not, I think, excuse me. I know Sue has also given not given, but sold whatever to, to Angela Hand. She's up in Missouri. She has her line and then I have her line as well, which is the French line. And literally we're talking eggs from France. That were brought here and actually, hatched out. And it's amazing how that happened. And then, so I have all those lines. So I never want to try to get something not from Sue personally. I don't want to ruin that line because once I, once you introduce another line like that, especially in that bird, it does make a difference. However, I have noticed though, that the more with that breed, I, you do want to, I need to break away from just not saying mother to son, but maybe skip a generation or two. Because I just got one that was just hatched out what this past spring. No, no fall. She looks like, she's been road hard and put away wet, her whole head is messed up. Her crest only shows on one half of her head. She's got four V combs on her head. But then her sister came out awesome. So if you don't have the right V comb immediately, you can kiss it. Goodbye. Honestly, you could just, let it be free range or whatever, but for
Jennifer: 26:02
them.
Michelle: 26:02
Oh yeah. There's the, there is the North American Crevecour breeders club on Facebook, of course the livestock conservancy, but mostly it's the North American and then yeah, North American. Crevecour Breeders, and then there's the Livestock Crevecour Conservation Project as well. And that's actually run by Jeannette, who's part of the Livestock Conservancy in Georgia. Gotcha. Yep.
Jennifer: 26:29
Anything else you would like to add?
Michelle: 26:32
They're in the Continental class and, for a long time, it was like me and some Polish in the continental. So it's great if you can get some more people in that continental class, there's a lot of people in Asiatic, like the Langston is in the Asiatic, but man, I'd love to add that if people really want to show that at least get into that continental. Class, it's really, it's an interesting class. You have the Lankshin in there, the Krev and the Polish, so that's it. That's what you're, that's, I call it that funky beard and crest group, laughter
Jennifer: 27:07
It was great having you. Kerry, do you have anything you want to ask about these birds?
Carey: 27:14
No, I'm good.
Jennifer: 27:16
All right. Thank you for explaining them to us, because I didn't know anything about them. They're pretty cool looking. They're pretty cool.
Michelle: 27:24
Absolutely, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hope you have a great week. And my first show down here is August 31st, believe it or not, out there in West, out there in West Texas. So we'll have
Carey: 27:36
Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you can receive the new episodes right when they are released. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com and share your thoughts about the show. Be sure to also give us a like and a follow on Facebook. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it exciting. This is Kerry signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.
