Valdarno Chicken

     The Valdarno is a breed of Chickens from Tuscany, in central Italy. It is very similar in appearance to the French Bresse Gauloise, and famous for its very fine meat, plus producing plenty of eggs. Since the beginning of the 20^th century, numbers of Valdarnos chickens declined dramatically due to the adoption of more productive commercial chicken breeds. That’s why the bird became almost extinct until a dedicated restoration program started few years ago. To restore the breed, local chickens of similar appearance to the Valdarno were crossed with the Castellana Negra and the black color-variety of the Bresse Gauloise.

    The Valdarno is a solid black chicken with white earlobes, large red single comb and wattles, and slate-dark legs. It’s also an active lively bird with a full body, and a well-developed tail. The Valdarno is a very rustic and strong chicken, that suits well in outdoor rearing.

     Valdarno hens are good layers of white eggs of weight 55 g or higher per each. They lay around 180 – 200 eggs per year, but they rarely go broody. Valdarnos feather up and grow fast, and the hens themselves produce eggs when they are just 5 months old.