Shetland Hens

From the Greenfire farms website:Our intrepid Greenfire Farms staff visited Scotland, and we were able to locate and procure a breeding flock of Shetland Hens, one of the rarest and most interesting poultry landraces on the planet. Scotland, a place of wild and raw beauty, provided the perfect testing ground to produce some of the most amazing livestock in the world. Now, we’re privileged to introduce this ancient Scottish chicken to the United States.

The Shetland Hen is a vanishing landrace of chickens that hails from the windswept isles of Scotland. Shetland Hens trace their origins to Spanish galleons that ran aground in Scotland almost 500 years ago. Some of these boats carried chickens with exotic genetics including the blue-egg gene that originated in South America. These Spanish birds bred with the local Scottish chickens and produced a wonderful race of birds now lauded for their unique traits including the tappit, or tufted, head feathering. These birds are listed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste as a breed critically in need of preservation.