AN AD for silver spangled Hamburgs, silver grey Dorkings and salmon Faverolles seemed seemed to spring from the pages of The Weekly Times in 1993.
Merino breeder, wool classer and poultry enthusiast Chris Scholz was intrigued.
- AT A GLANCE
- Who: Chris Scholz
- What: exotic poultry breed
- Why: one of the world's biggest collections
- Where: Culcairn
- Report: KIM WOODS
"I had never heard of Faverolles," she said.
"I rang up my mate and said what are these chooks?
"He said 'buggered if I know, buy some and see what they turn out like'."
Chris, of Culcairn in southern NSW, was soon obsessed by one of the most exotic of poultry breeds.
She now boasts one of the world's biggest collection of coloured Faverolles.
Originally a French table bird and egg layer, the breed is quite rare in Australia.
Faverolles have distinctive muffled faces, a beard, feathering down the legs and a fifth toe.
Commonly called Favs, they come in a variety of colours, including blue, white, black, salmon, birchen, ermine, cuckoo and a very rare blue salmon.
Chris and fellow poultry breeders Kyle and Lisa Sturgess, of Barmedman near Temora, specialise in the blue salmon.
Several years of careful breeding has resulted in enough live birds to relaunch the colour at a Faverolles field day on Saturday.
This will be followed the following day by an auction of almost 100 birds, including large blue salmons.
From the start Chris was advised to gain a thorough understanding of genetics and master the salmon colour before breeding new ones.
Since then she has enforced a strict culling criteria for breeding stock.
The blue salmon is not as yet recognised as a colour in Australia, but Chris believes it will be a hit with poultry enthusiasts.
"The blue-salmon female is recognisable by blue tail feathers while the male has a blue beard and front instead of black," she said.
"Breeding poultry is so interesting as the generational interval is short and rapid progress can be made.
"But it takes 10 years to stabilise a new colour to give a predictable outcome.
"Trying to do it in three to four years is just playing with fire."
Last year, Chris hatched out 500 Faverolle chickens, keeping up to 60 as core breeding stock.
The chooks eat their way through seven tonnes of feed annually.
"I use leg rings for pedigree recording, increasing the size as the bird reaches maturity," Chris said.
"I have found the loss of rings is well under 0.5 per cent, they are reusable and offer far more combinations than the toe punch.
"The rings are put on day olds and at six weeks of age, so I can examine each bird for faults."
Chris recommends all breeders having an independent classer check out their breeding stock.
She said the small genetic Faverolle pool in Australia meant care was needed when breeding.
Her next plan is to breed a red Faverolle from scratch, documenting the whole process.
"We have a lot of poultry breeders out there with incredible enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge," Chris said.
She also likes to encourage young breeders and has donated Faverolles to a Wodonga catholic primary school, St Monicas.
"It's important to share knowledge and put back into the community," Chris said.
A member of the Faverolles Club of Australia, Chris runs her Kashmir Poultry stud from her 202ha farm, once home to the family's Swagalong superfine Merino stud but now leased out.
A qualified wool classer, Chris was the federal secretary of the Woolclassers Association of Australia for five years.
She oversaw the amalgamation with the Australian Workers Union in 2008 and spent many years woolclassing in sheds throughout the Riverina, Upper Murray and western Victoria.
A competent welder and woodworker, Chris has also turned her hand to making furniture using recycled materials.
The field day at Kashmir, Culcairn, will start at 11am on Saturday and the auction and tours of the breeding pens from 11am on Sunday.
Speakers will include Faverolles Club of Australia patron Megg Miller and president Jeff Reid.
For more details, phone Chris on 0417 425 265.
