The Difference Between Heirloom and Legacy Chickens

I love the heirloom tomato; Black Krim and Aunt Ruby’s are some of my favorite plants to grow in the garden. I’m also a big apple lover and love oldies like Roxbury Russet and Zabergau Reinette. I confess that I have never tried traditional breeds of chicken (although I once roasted a real wild turkey), so when my husband came home from the grocery store with a family bird, I was intrigued.

Traditional breeds of fried chicken are reported to be more flavorful than regular grocery store poultry, but have less breast meat and are much more expensive. But the chicken my husband brought home looked and tasted more or less like regular grocery store chicken—and cost $3.19 a pound. This is perhaps a higher level for a grocery store, but far from what I expect from the prices of traditional breeds.

I spent some time researching the brands and words on the label before I had my “aha” moment — it was sold as an heirloom chicken, not a heritage chicken. What to expect?

“Heirloom” for vegetables

I first learned about heirloom tomatoes in the early 2000s, in the context of sustainable nutrition and organic gardening. These are varieties such as the bumpy Brandywine, whose seeds are passed down from generation to generation, unlike the modern hybrids you are most likely to find in the grocery store.

Family heirlooms have a lot in common for them. Often these are varieties bred to have a specific feature or to serve a specific purpose. They may be very juicy, or they may have an unusual flavor or color. The reason they fell by the wayside was often because they didn’t have what it took to survive in the world of commercial mega-farming – the juiciest tomatoes lost out to tomatoes that were less likely to wrinkle in shipping crates.

But if they’re not working on a factory farm, heirloom tomatoes are still great for home gardeners. You can enjoy tomatoes (or beans or carrots) that won’t work on a commercial scale because you’re not on a commercial scale. Notably, many heirloom plants can be propagated without establishing a separate breeding program. “open pollination” is the term you’ll see on labels; this means that you can save the seeds, plant them again next year and get the same tomatoes.

The opposite approach would be “hybrid” tomatoes, which are fresh (F1) crossbreeds of two different varieties. If you harvest an “Early Girl” tomato, its seeds will not produce more “Early Girl”. You will have to start from scratch and cross the parent strains again. The seed companies do it; gardeners are not worried about this.

Want to plant heirloom seeds in your garden? Try these unusual looking late season vegetables:

• King burgundy beans (green beans that turn purple when raw)
• Dragon tongue beans (raw with pink and white veins)
• Golden Detroit Beetroot (yellow)
• Nebula black carrot (black)
• Round Parisian carrot (spherical like a radish)
• French radish (stretched out like a small carrot)

Meanwhile, in the world of apples, varieties that have been passed down from generation to generation are known as “vintage” rather than heirloom. I once heard an apple expert describe “heirloom” as a generic term for varieties we suspect are old, and “antique” for those whose history is well documented; I’m not sure if this distinction is commonly used or if it’s just their personal way of thinking about it. (Fun fact: apples never grow from seed, so they are propagated by grafting a desired tree’s branch onto the roots of another tree. “Open pollinated apples” are not a thing.)

“Heritage” for livestock

Let’s get back to chickens. Older breeds of chickens, pigs, cattle, and other livestock are called “ancestral” breeds. The Livestock Conservancy defines traditional chicken breeds based on whether they were recognized by the American Poultry Association prior to the “mid-20th century”. You can view the full list of livestock breeds that the Livestock Conservancy recognizes, including notes on which are the most endangered.

As with heirloom tomatoes, traditional breeds of chickens (and other livestock) were popular in the past, but not common in today’s large-scale farming. In the 1940s and 1950s, poultry farmers held nationwide competitions to breed the plumpest, fastest growing chickens . Winner hybrids and similar birds now dominate grocery stores . These days you might have to visit a specialized farm if you want one of the old fashioned breeds.

There’s a Reason You Haven’t Heard of Heirloom Chickens

So how did the “heirloom” chicken end up in my grocery store? Before I noticed the subtle shift in terminology, I wrote to the company to ask “what family breed” their chickens were. The representative replied that the company had been working for ten years to create a new breed from parent ancestors, including the Transylvanian Bare Neck and Delaware. They call their breed Pioneer . So this is not an old breed at all, but a new one. That’s why they can’t call it “heritage”, but no one forbids them from using the term “heirloom” even though “heirloom chicken” is not a common expression. (Though it sounds very similar.)

The end result of breeding chickens is that the company has used the genetics of traditional birds to produce a bird that they say is healthier and better suited to outdoor conditions than typical factory-farmed birds. (And the bird we bought was pasture raised and certified humane, which is a good sign.)