Cou nu du Forez Chicken

     The Cou nu du Forez, or the Forez Naked Neck, is a breed of Chickens from the Forez region of the Loire in France. It’s characterized by having a completely naked neck with the exception of a tuft of feathers in the middle. The Forez is also related to the Naked Neck chicken breed, which it closely resembles.

     The Cou nu du Forez is actually giving rise to various offspring for the naked neck trait. When Cou nu du Forez roosters and hens mate, one in four of the chicks will be normal feathered. Also, one in four will be a pure Naked Neck, and two in four will have the Cou nu du Forez characteristics.

     The Forez Naked Neck is a robust utility breed developed to be an easily-pluckable meat bird. The bird is known with its excellent tasting flesh, probably due to the fact it’s mainly free-range produced.

     Forez hens are good layers of lightly-tinted eggs, weighing a minimum of 60 g per each (around 180 – 200 eggs per year). But they don’t tend to go broody. The Cou nu du Forez is accepted only in the white plumage color-variety, with a single comb, red earlobes and whitish-yellow legs.