China's famous excellent meat and egg chicken varieties. Native to Jiangsu Rudong, Nantong two counties, to the south of Nantong Wolf Mountain named, formerly known as "fork river chicken" "Matang black chicken". Now Rudong County's Matang, Fork River, Dug Harbor and Tongzhou City's Shigang are still mostly bred. The climate in these areas is humid, with the sea on both sides in the northeast, and the rivers and canals in the territory are intertwined with sufficient feed for the growth of Wolf Mountain chickens. The feathers are mostly pure black, and a few white ones have been gradually eliminated. The single crown red, head and neck lift, tail feathers high, back like "U" shape, chest developed. The body is high and the legs are long, and there are many feathers on the outside of the legs. The beak and legs are black. Adult males weigh about 3.5 to 4 kilograms and females 2.5 to 3 kilograms. The annual egg production is 120～170, each egg weighs 55～65 grams, and the eggshell is brown. The wolf mountain chicken has a lively temperament, strong foraging ability, adaptability and disease resistance. Muscular, tender meat, all over the country are raised. It was once exported to Britain in the latter part of the 19th century and later distributed to other countries. The famous black Orpington chicken in Britain was improved and bred from it. It also played a role in the formation of other foreign chicken breeds.

"Wolf Mountain chicken" an interesting story

When it comes to "Wolf Mountain chicken", there is also an interesting story. As far away as 1872, a British merchant ship, anchored in the Yangtze River near Nantong, the cook went ashore to buy back a number of black chickens for cooking. Because the chicken meat is tender, the flavor is delicious, the captain was very surprised, like a treasure, it will be the remaining few brought back to Britain. Later, this black chicken was even exhibited in the British poultry exhibition, by the European and American poultry experts, won the gold medal. Thus, Europe, the United States, many countries in Asia will import this chicken from China. As these chickens are exported from Nantong Wolf Mountain, so named "Wolf Mountain Chicken". After the founding of the country, Wolf Mountain chickens have been used as breeders. Flying to Germany, Australia and other countries. At one time, Wolf Mountain chickens are worth a hundred times more, famous at home and abroad.

Wolf Mountain chicken is one of the egg-meat type chicken species. It is famous for laying many eggs, large eggs, fat and strong, and delicious meat, and it is divided into two kinds of black and white according to the color of its coat. Black called "Wolf Mountain Black", feathers black and green, blue, glittering, colorful. "Wolf Mountain Black" there is a variety of crown behind a fluffy hair, also known as "Wolf Mountain Phoenix", Rudong people call it "fluffy chicken". White is called "Wolf Mountain White", "Wolf Mountain White" is very few in number, its feathers are white and flawless, with a bright red crown, red and white, pleasing to the eye. Wolf Mountain chicken, body like a saddle, especially roosters, head high tail, elegant, can be described as extraordinary style.

Distribution of origin

The wolf mountain chicken is an ancient and excellent local breed in China, and is famous among the world's poultry breeds. Wolf Mountain chicken originated in Jiangsu Province, Rudong County territory, to Matang, fork river as the center, next to the digging port, spelling tea, Fengli and Shuangdian, Nantong County, Shihang and other places are also distributed. The chicken distribution center for the north bank of the Yangtze River, Nantong port, near the port there is a tourist attraction, known as the Wolf Mountain, thus getting its name. 1872 was first introduced to the United Kingdom, and then in the poultry exhibition in the United Kingdom and the United States have won the attention of the poultry industry and praise, and then imported into Germany, France, Japan and other countries, and is included in the countries of the spectrum of poultry breeds.

The wolf mountain chicken is famous for its large body, pure black feathers, many eggs in winter and large eggs. The chicken has been further selected and bred abroad and hybridized with local chickens to produce new breeds, such as the contemporary famous chicken breed Black Opuntia, Australian Black and so on. Therefore, the Wolf Mountain chicken has also contributed to the world's chicken industry.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, although the Wolf Mountain chicken has been famous, but no domestic special field for selection and breeding work, but due to the origin of the more remote, the transportation is also inconvenient, the chicken in the masses are still a large number of breeding and preservation.

In 1952, the East China Agricultural Science Research Institute first Wolf Mountain Chicken varieties of origin survey and import crossbreeding test. 1959, Jiangsu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry and Nantong Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry in Rudong and Nantong, respectively, to build a farm in the selection and breeding of Wolf Mountain Chicken. 20 years, the scale of the two farms and the quality of the breeder has developed and improved, the annual promotion of eggs, breeder chicks 30 to 400,000, in addition to the province, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Hunan, Hunan and other provinces, the chicken is still a large number of breeding and preservation of the masses. In addition to the province, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Shanghai and other 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government have introduced breeding, preservation, selection and promotion of local breeds has played a great role.

Breed formation

Originally located in the north of the Yangtze River Delta, east of the Yellow Sea, the land will be reclaimed from the beach year by year, farmers have always lived scattered, mostly single-family scattered in the field, together with the surrounding farmland constitutes a unit of small-scale agricultural economy, the mansion around the planting of bamboo forests or clumps of reeds, the chickens can be sufficient to forage to the animal fodder and green fodder; Local Local seafood, shells abound, chickens need mineral feed is not scarce; coupled with a mild climate, four seasons, flat terrain, loose soil, river and harbor crossings, good drainage and irrigation, high crop yields, the masses have a habit of feeding chickens with corn, barley, rice. The above conditions have created a good material basis for the formation of chicken breeds.? Raising chickens is the main sideline of local farmers, and the number of chickens raised is relatively large, therefore, each farmer breeds on his own and seldom mixes. Local customs play a great role in the selection of species, such as the selection of pure black feathers is because the farmers taboo red feathers as a sign of fire, and regard pure black as auspicious, fishermen sea rituals also require the use of pure black rooster, which prompted the elimination of mixed-feathered chickens, specializing in the selection of pure-feathered chickens. Because of the beautiful body, pure black feathers and brilliant luster of the Wolf Mountain chicken for people to love, so as early as more than a hundred years ago has been listed as an international standard varieties and world famous.

Body Appearance

Characteristics? Robust body, head high and tail cocked, back more concave, dense feathers, flexible action. Early statehood survey, according to the body type can be divided into two kinds of heavy and light, the former are mostly produced in Matang, Forked River, the cock weighs 4.0 ~ 4.5kg, the hen is 3.0 ~ 3.5kg; the latter to spell the tea is more, the cock weighs 3.0 ~ 3.5kg, the hen is about 2.0kg. According to the feather color can be divided into pure black, yellow and white three kinds of chickens, of which the black chicken is the most, followed by yellow chickens, white chickens at least, and miscellaneous hair chickens are very rare. Each color is divided into four types according to the presence or absence of feathers on the head crown and tibia and toe parts: bald head and bare feet, bald head and hairy feet, phoenix head and hairy feet and phoenix head and bare feet. At the beginning of the establishment of the Rudong County Wolf Mountain Chicken Breeding Farm, the production performance of the above types was measured, and finally the medium-sized black bald head and feet type was taken as the object of selection and retention, and the Nantong Wolf Mountain Chicken Breeding Farm established the foundation flock with the bald head and feet type from the very beginning, so the physical appearance of the two flocks is basically the same. Wolf mountain chicken head short round and meticulous, the masses called snake head big eyes, single crown, crown teeth 5 to 6. The face, ear lobes and fleshy droop are bright red. The iridescence of the eyes is predominantly yellow, intermixed with tawny. The beak is blackish brown with a slightly lighter tip. The tibiae are black and slender. The feathers are close to the carapace, and the new chickens of the year have a black-green luster. Adult black wolf grouse are mostly pure black, sometimes the 9th to 10th main wing feathers are white, but just out of the shell of the chick, the forehead, abdomen and wing tips are yellowish, until the middle of the chick to change the feathers before they all become black, which is obviously different from other black chicken species. The wolf mountain chicken has white skin.

Breed Prospect

Wolf Mountain chicken as China's excellent local chicken breed has long been protected and cultivated, but compared with the modern specialized chicken, there is still a large gap. Therefore, while preserving the breed, it is necessary to carry out line breeding and improve feeding management to further improve the production performance of the Wolf Mountain chicken. In addition, the slow-feathered and fast-feathered lines in the black-feathered should also continue to be selected and bred to facilitate the identification of male and female chicks in the formation of matching production in the future.

The new wolf mountain chicken?

Distribution of origin

The New Wolf Mountain Chicken is the first part-time chicken breed bred after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Selected and bred by the East China Agricultural Research Institute in 1952, the breed was basically finalized in 1958, and was transferred to the Institute of Poultry Research of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1959 to continue to cultivate and expand the flock to promote the breeding of the chicken. After the initial breeding, the chicken was sent to Beijing Agricultural Exhibition Center for the first national exhibition in 1955, which attracted the attention of all over the world and was introduced, and from 1956 onwards, a large number of chickens were supplied to all over the world, and a batch of eggs was exported to Czechoslovakia at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture of Czechoslovakia in 1956. Between 1956 and 1977, about 600,000 eggs and chicks were supplied in Jiangsu Province and other provinces. In addition, it has established breeder bases for new Wolf Mountain chickens in Jiangdu and Yangzhong counties in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Egg Factory No. 5, breeding Wolf Mountain chicks and promoting them to farmers.

Breed formation

In the early 50s, the East China Agricultural Science Research Institute sent staff to the Nantong area of Jiangsu Province, the wolf mountain chicken originated in Rudong County, Fork River, Matang, Digging Harbor, etc., to carry out in-depth investigations, and learned that the wolf mountain chicken's original breed of resources, is a promising part-time chicken breeds, but maturity is late in the grazing and half-feeding conditions, according to the East China Agricultural Science Research Institute of the 195 years of individual record statistics, the wolf mountain chickens, the wolf mountain chickens, the wolf mountain chickens. According to the statistics recorded by the East China Agricultural Science Research Institute in 195, it takes about 8 months of age to start laying, and the egg weight is light, with an average egg weight of 49.8 g. Generally, the annual egg production is about 150-160 eggs, and the public also hopes that there can be more. For this reason, we set the goal of selecting and breeding a new breed of chicken suitable for the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which can be used for both eggs and meat. The specific selection indexes were: strong body, annual egg production of about 200 eggs, egg weight of about 58g, maturity period of 20d, adult male weighing about 3kg, female weighing about 2kg, and white skin. In 1951 and 1952, we twice bought the lighter black wolf hen with better egg-laying performance in the production area as the original material. In order to improve the shortcomings of late sexual maturity and light egg weight and to preserve the original good quality of wolf hen, we decided to take the introduced Australian black cock with early maturity, larger body weight, heavier eggs, loose body shape, slow movement, poor foraging power and unsuitable for agricultural grazing as another parent material, and carried out the importing method. Breeding hybridization in the way of importation was carried out, i.e. selecting the early-maturing and heavier Australian Black rooster as the father in the first generation and backcrossing it with the individual hens with good production performance after individual observation; selecting the excellent Wolf Hill rooster in the second generation and backcrossing it with the excellent individual hens in the generation of hybrids; and selecting the ideal individual that meets the expected selection goal for self-crossing from the third generation, and in the following generations, we will pay attention to the identification of appearance and genealogical selection, as well as the selection and selection of the best individuals. In the following generations, attention was paid to the identification of appearance, genealogical selection, and in the stage of child chickens to strengthen the field grazing, forging its physical strength and cultivating its foraging performance, until 1958, the basic stereotypes.

Body appearance

The new wolf mountain chicken's body type is a part-time type. The back is straight, unlike the concave back of the original wolverine. The feathering is between that of the Australian Black and the Black Wolverine, neither as loose as the Australian Black nor as compact as the Wolverine. Bare feet, hairless feet Type. Black plumage all over. Single crown. Iridescence of eyes yellowish brown. Tibiae and feet light colored bluish gray. New and moulted feathers have a bluish-green sheen. The iridescence, tibia, feather coloration and body shape are distinctly different from the original Wolverine Chicken.

Breed Prospect

The new wolf mountain chicken is cultivated in the 50's of this century, suitable for the farming family to raise the grazing of the part-time chicken breeds, has a better production performance, the green fodder is particularly preferred, the meat quality is fresh, fine fiber, in different stages of growth are suitable to do a variety of famous dishes; son of the rooster is suitable for the production of the wind chicken; eggshell dark brown, in line with the needs of the people of our country in the 60's and 70's popularity of farming families. The dark brown eggshell meets the demand of our people and was popular among farmers in the 1960s and 1970s. For intensive rearing, compared with modern specialized commercial chicken breeds, of course, has its own shortcomings, but can be considered as a material in the hybridization of the application.