Krüper Chicken

     The Krüper (literally means ‘Short-Legged Chicken’) is a rare breed of Chickens from Germany. It’s one of the oldest German dual-purpose chicken breeds, that dates back to the 16^th Century.

     Practically, getting 100% Krüper chicks from the incubated eggs is not a straight process. Actually, Krüper’s mating yields 25% long-legged offspring, 25% dead in shell and 50% short-legged exactly like the parents. To avoid a predetermined 25% dead in the shell occurrence, a long-legged bird can be crossed with a short-legged bird. This will give rise to a 50% split in short-legged and normal-legged offspring.

     Krüpers are very practical chickens, because of their hardiness, longevity, high fertility, and low susceptibility to diseases. The hens are good layers of white eggs (180 eggs per year of weight 55 g or more per each), but they rarely go broody.

     Krüper chickens are always single combed, have moderate-sized wattles, and white earlobes. The black and the barred are the most common colors-varieties for the Krüper, but other plumage color-varieties do exist. A bantam version is also available for this breed, but only in the white and the silvery color-varieties.