Appenzeller Spitzhauben

Origin:  Switzerland

Category:  Softfeather Light

Egg Colour:  White

Sitter: Rarely

The Appenzeller Spizhauben is rare, unique and beautiful. It might be described as an intermediate form between the Brabant Baduaner on the one hand and the Dutch on the other. It is a pleasing, light, agile, and lively type of landrace chicken, reminiscent of Brabant chickens in its head, beak, comb, crest, and colouring, and of modern Dutch chickens in its beardless face and chin. 

Despite its rarity, Bruno Durigen states in his record, Die Geflugelzucht, that it had been preserved in the north-easternmost part of Switzerland, in the canton of Appenzell.  According to tradition, these 'Appenzell Spighauben', had been bred for many years, perhaps for centuries, in the Alpine region south of Lake Constance, surrounded by St Gallen. They are now cared for by a specialised breed association and appeared at a poultry  exhibition in The Hague in 1921.

Due to their very lively nature, the Appenzeller Spitzhauben are not suitable for tight enclosures; their utility is only fully realized with unrestricted free range: then annual yields of up to 250 eggs are not uncommon. Egg size corresponds to that of the Hamburg. Brooding is rare. Males, if healthy and not bloodless due to close inbreeding, are robust and therefore easy to breed.

Male Characteristics

Carriage

The Appenzeller Spitzhauben carries itself erect and is light, agile and lively. 

Type

Medium body similar to a landrace chicken, taping to the rear; back sloping slightly downwards. Breast full, curved and carried slightly raised. Tail fanned, carried erect, with full, long sickles in the mature male. Wings quite long, carried high. 

Head

Head medium with rounded skull, held up; comb in the form of two equal-length horns pointing upward, forming a Roman V, slightly curved forward at the top; behind the forked comb, an upright, spiked crest with no looseness and no roundness. Crest feathers: Medium large, forward-sloping crest tuft. Leaves the eyes and field of vision open. Beak: Strong; upper beak distinctly curved; bluish; nostrils prominent and preferably a horseshoe-shaped raised beak ridge. A small fleshy spot or mole in front of it is acceptable. Face smooth-skinned, fiery red. Eyes large, dark brown with an alert appearance. Earlobes medium-sized, oval-shaped, bluish white. Chin wattles red, fine-skinned and moderately long. Neck of moderate length appearing slightly curved and covered by abundant hackle plumage.

Legs & Feet

Blue shanks of medium length, with visible slender thighs, and four toes.  Bare bluish feet, and white nails.

Plumage

Plumage tight and close-lying on the body.

Female Characteristics

Same as rooster except for sex-specific characteristics, but the back line is almost horizontal.

Colours

Black

Black feathered with lustrous green sheen throughout, underfeathers and quills dark grey to black - as dark as possible.

Chamois

Golden buff ground colour with spangling as for the Silver Spangled but creamy white. Evenness of ground colour is prioritised but lighter shade overall is preferred.  Tail golden buff, having well defined creamy white spangles at the tips. Underfeathers creamy white. Abdomen creamy white. Primaries and secondaries golden buff tipped with creamy white spangle. 

Gold Spangled

Gold-speckled, with an orange to copper-yellow (preferably golden-yellow!) base color, green-black speckled breast, back, and wing tips or wing bars, golden-red neck and saddle hackles, large yellow sickles, and fine yellow sickles with black edges.

Silver Spangled

Base colour as pure white as possible with each feather tipped with a black spangle without lacing. The more v-shaped the spangle marking is the better and spangles should be fairy small and distributed as evenly as possible.  Spangles create two parallel bars across each wing. Tail white, ending in a black spangle as crisply as possible. Abdomen and undercolour dark grey. 

White

Plumage entirely white.

'Houdan-coloured' and 'Barred'

Note that in historical texts it is mentioned that the Appenzeller Spitzhauben came in 'Houdan-coloured', or 'black-sheathed' which may be a reference to a mottled rather than spangled plumage pattern. These, however, are rarely if ever seen and this colour is not represented in the Appenzeller Spitzhauben colours in the Australian Poultry Standards. The same may be said of the Barred Spitzhauben. 

Weights

Weight approximately 3 pounds (1.32kg) given in historical texts. 

Weight: Rooster 1.5 – 1.8 kg, Hen 1.2 kg – 1.5 kg (Given by Turkish Poultry Standard)

Note that the Australian Poultry Standards gives ranges for male and female that are slightly higher than this. 

Scale of Points

For detail see the Australian Poultry Standards regarding points. Note that type and carriage receives the highest allocation of points, followed by 20% for crest which is very important in this breed. 

General Disqualifications

See Disqualifications.

Serious Breed Defects

When judging the Appenzeller Spitzhauben the following are considered serious faults: strong deviations in conformation or stance, absence of comb horns, excessively large horns obscuring front view of crest horizontally, horns of uneven length, comb other than horn, absence of cavernous nostrils, Lack of beak characteristics,  excessively large bulbous crest; wry tail or lacking fullness, impure ground colour.

• Australian Poultry Standards

• https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003077827&seq=246 Durigen, Bruno. 'Die Geflugelzucht'. Edition 4 and 5 Neubearb. Aufl. ead, 1923. Germany. 

• https://tshfedstandartlar.com/Breed%20Standards/Appenzell%20tepeli.pdf  

• tshfedstandartlar-com