2021 Poultry Census

This critically important project will focus on identifying breeding populations of domestic poultry (purebred breeds or landraces), including chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese. It will enable us to understand how poultry populations are faring in North America. Results from the census will guide conservation efforts for years to come.

Many of these breeds are historically significant and represent irreplaceable genetics that may be essential to the future of agriculture. Even as backyard poultry keeping becomes more popular, many of the less common or more challenging breeds are now in real danger of extinction. By identifying breeding populations of rare poultry breeds, we can move forward with our mission to protect them from extinction.

We invite all producers who manage breeding flocks to participate in the survey. Your responses will remain anonymous, however, you may opt to share your contact information with The Livestock Conservancy. This will help us identify breeders who hold high conservation value flocks, which are important to the long term genetic diversity of our endangered poultry breeds. A detailed summary of the results will be shared following the analysis of the data.