Estaires
Gallus gallus domesticus
✨ Fun Fact
Estaires was utterly destroyed during World War I, rebuilt completely in the 1920s — the chicken breed named after this town survived the same war, a small but stubborn piece of Flemish rural life that refused to be erased.
A critically rare French dual-purpose breed from the town of Estaires in the Nord department of French Flanders. Developed in the early 20th century, the Estaires is a large, well-fleshed white bird with a single comb and clean legs, bred to produce both a good number of white eggs and a generous table carcass. The breed shares ancestry with other great Flemish-French dual-purpose breeds of the era, such as the Bourbourg and Coucou des Flandres, all developed to serve the mixed farming economy of the Franco-Belgian borderlands. Like its regional cousins, the Estaires was nearly wiped out by the shift to intensive poultry farming after 1945. A small number of dedicated French breeders, supported by SCAF and the EE Europastandard, maintain the breed today as a living link to the traditional agriculture of the Lys River valley.
🏷️ Breed
Estaires
💭 Temperament
Calm, docile, gentle, good mother, steady
📏 Size
Large (3.2-4.1 kg)
⏳ Lifespan
5-8 years
🎨 Colors
White
🌍 Origin
France — Estaires, Nord (French Flanders); early 20th century
🏠 Habitat
Free-range or enclosed run; well-adapted to Flemish lowland conditions
🍽️ Diet
Layer pellets; moderate forager on rich farmland
🎯 Purpose
Dual Purpose
🥚 Egg Colour
White
👑 Comb Type
Single
🏅 EE Class
Large Fowl