It all started with a rather bold decision — often the best kind. A future resident of Baon, still living in Paris at the time, had decided to raise chickens — not just any chickens. Noires de Janzé. An ancient breed from Ille-et-Vilaine, selected around the commune of Janzé for generations. Dark plumage with green iridescence in the light, slate-coloured legs, an upright bearing and an exceptionally calm temperament. A breed that nearly disappeared, saved at the last moment by a handful of dedicated breeders.
The problem is that you don't find Noires de Janzé just anywhere. Certainly not in Burgundy. So they had to be sourced from where they still live: Brittany.
A parcel like no other
The adventure began with eggs. Fertilised eggs, carefully packaged, sent from Ille-et-Vilaine to Paris by express courier. No one quite expected that Burgundy's future henhouse would begin its existence in a cardboard shipping box, somewhere between Rennes and the capital — but that's exactly what happened.
In Paris, the eggs settled into an incubator installed in an apartment. For several weeks, temperature, humidity, regular turning: everything was monitored with the kind of attention you might expect from a carer. Then, one morning, the first cracks appeared in the shells. The chicks were born — tiny, fluffy, already curious about the world.
Two months in the capital
The Paris stay was meant to be brief. It lasted nearly two months — for one very specific reason: the house in Baon was not yet available. A month's delay on the original schedule, and the chicks, for their part, had no intention of waiting to grow up.
Because chicks grow fast — much faster than you might imagine. Week after week, their living space had to be revised upwards, enlarged, reorganised — keeping pace with creatures that clearly had no intention of staying small.
During those two months, the young Noires de Janzé experienced city life. A Parisian apartment, the warmth of a heat lamp, the sounds of the city in the background. An unusual childhood for chickens whose ancestors have always lived in the open air.
The bonds formed during this period have something special about them. Chicks born in your hands, fed drop by drop, watched hour by hour — they don't forget you. Even today, in Baon, the Noires de Janzé recognise their keeper and come to him as soon as he enters the aviary.
Arriving in Baon
The day of departure for Burgundy finally arrived. And with it, a change of scene: from Paris to Baon. From concrete to grass. From a ceiling to the open sky.
An aviary had been built to receive them — large, sturdy, designed to give them space and freedom. So sturdy and so much of a priority, in fact, that the Noires de Janzé had their quarters well before their owner could sleep on a mattress. Priorities were clear: chickens first.
In those first hours, the Noires de Janzé discovered the perches, the earthen floor, the insects, the scents of the Burgundian countryside. Everything was new. Everything was worth exploring, scratching, tasting, examining.
Today, they are at home in Baon. They peck, they roam, they bask in the sun when it shines, they perch in tight rows when night falls. They have made the garden their territory.
Why it matters
One might wonder what a few chickens can change in the story of a village. Quite a lot, as it turns out.
The Noire de Janzé belongs to a living heritage that you won't find in museums, but which is every bit as deserving of preservation. These ancient breeds carry centuries of peasant selection, an adaptation to specific soils and climates, a precious genetic diversity that industrial farming has largely erased. Preserving them, even on a small scale, even in a garden in Burgundy, is participating in something that goes beyond simple livestock rearing.
And then there is what these initiatives give back to the village itself. A little extra life. A story to tell. A shared curiosity. It is these small, discreet projects, driven by passionate residents, that keep a village a place where things happen.
Preserving them, even on a small scale, even in a garden in Burgundy, is participating in something that goes beyond simple livestock rearing.
Photos: personal archives