Breed Profile: Pavlovskaya Chicken
The Pavlovskaya chicken is a cute, quirky, and personable landrace breed from Volga Uplands of Russia.
“They’re definitely not a breed you can make money on,” Canadian poultry breeder Candace Lylyk, owner of Breezy Bird Farms in Manitoba, told me with a bit of a chuckle as she described Pavlovskayas — an endearing little landrace chicken from the Pavlovo region in the Volga Uplands of Russia. “Why would a poultry breeder, who makes a living raising rare and exotic fowl, continue to raise them?” I asked.
“Their cuteness alone makes them worth keeping,” she replied. Pavlovskayas aren’t a well-known breed in North America. The bodies of Pavlovskayas tend to be somewhat small, and they’re definitely not birds most people would raise for meat. They’re not known to be stellar layers, with the white to light tan eggs often being small to medium in size. “They’re just so cute, quirky, and personable; I continue raising them for these reasons.”
Candace isn’t the only rare and exotic poultry breeder who’s found these little birds endearing and worth keeping because of their cuteness. Nicolle Ferrier, at Sugar Feather Farm in Vermont, is one of the few breeders in the United States who also raises this breed. As I spoke with Nicolle, she echoed many of the same sentiments about these little birds as Candace had. Nicolle described them as “somewhat quirky and sometimes a bit ditzy.” She went on to say, “Their abiding little personalities make them so loveable.”
Both breeders have a fair amount of additional information about the breed on their websites. Nicolle is a member of the Pavlovskaya Conservation Association. The links to a very interesting and in-depth history of the birds and their recovery from a virtually extinct status in Russia, written by Soviet historian Yuri Dmitriev, can be found on Sugar Feather Farm’s website.
Pavlovskaya chickens tend to be small for standard-size fowl, similar in size to lighter-weight Mediterranean breeds. Hens average 3 to 4 pounds each, and roosters are 4 to 5 pounds. The breed comes in a variety of both silver and gold color patterns. The color ranges run from pure white to black and white, from golden buff to red, usually with some black mottling or other patterns mixed in.
One of the most prominent physical features of the Pavlovskaya is the feather crest on the head. Some crests are flattened on the sides, making the birds look they’re sporting a mohawk. This crest can and does look very regal, especially on a strutting, well-conformed male. While a flopping or wry crest is a serious fault according to the Russian Standard, it’s still occasionally found in some imported landrace strains in North America. Ironically, that comical-looking, floppy, or leaning crest, combined with the wacky personality so many of the birds are noted for, are reasons that some keepers of the fowl in North America find them so appealing and desirable.
Another unique feature of the Pavlovskaya is the feathering on the legs. The shanks and toes are covered in short, tight, feathered stockings known as grouse-feather because of its resemblance to feathering on a grouse. They also have beards and muffs.
According to both Candace and Nicolle, Pavlovskayas tend to be very cold- and winter-hardy, an invaluable trait in both the harsh Canadian and upper New England winters. Nicolle says that Pavlovskayas are the most cold-hardy breed that she raises. The breed’s V-shaped combs and wattles are small, greatly limiting exposure to frostbite possibility.
The breed is known to be extremely good at foraging on its own. As descendants of landrace fowl that once survived in the farmland of the Upper Volga Region, the birds haven’t lost the ability to locate much of their own feed while running free. Nicolle told me that she has a few customers who choose to raise chickens in a totally natural setting. This means that the birds forage for most of their own feed for much of the year. Because of their remarkable ability to fend for themselves, Pavlovskayas have become one of their favorite breeds.
Pavlovskayas are an amazingly gentle breed. They’re docile and can be bullied if kept with other breeds. Their gentleness makes them a good breed for children. Little ones should be taught to move quietly and gently around them, though. Part of the ability to survive on their own also includes alertness, which can make them startle easily with rapid movements from people or other animals.
Pavlovskayas were once a common fowl throughout the Volga Uplands. According to historian Yuri Dmitriev, there’s a belief that the origin of the birds traces back to at least the 1700s, with a legend that many of the birds were descendants of the flocks kept by Catherine the Great.
During the 1800s, Pavlovskayas were the proverbial poster fowl of the Russian Empire and depicted with great pride in pictures, postcards, drawings, and oil paintings. For unknown reasons, the breed slowly fell out of favor, and by the last decade of the century, they had dwindled to just a few birds. In the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century, there were records of a few pairs and trios being shown in poultry shows conducted by the Russian Imperial Poultry Society, but almost nothing was published after this time period. The breed seemed to disappear.
In the early 1980s, a group of poultry fanciers from across the Soviet Union became interested in finding remnants of the breed and hopefully reestablishing it. Fast forward to 1991, when a conference of the Soviet Union’s Association of Hobby Breeders of Backyard Poultry was held in Russia, where the farms and breeders were selected to breed and reestablish Pavolvskayas. Standards as to what the breed should look like were also established. Today, Pavlovskayas are a recognized breed in Russia, albeit still rare and endangered. The Russian Standard for the breed is also accepted in a number of European nations. In the United States and Canada, they’re still raised as landrace fowl and haven’t been accepted by the American Poultry Association.
When re-establishing the breed, no pure-blooded specimens could be found. The breeders had to use crossbreeds that were mixed with Pavlovskaya and strongly exhibited traits of the original breed. Five hens and three cockerels were found and, from these, the breeding program started.
Taxidermy specimens of the breed also existed in both the Darwin Museum in Moscow and the Soviet Agricultural Museum in Pushkin near St. Petersburg. These specimens, along with numerous pictures, prints, paintings, and written descriptions of the fowl also existed, making the ability to set standards much easier.
Today, after much dedicated work by these Russian poultry hobbyists, this endearing breed has been re-
established and distributed to other areas of the globe, including North America.
Sources
www.Sugar-Feather.com
www.BreezyBirdfarms.com
Doug Ottinger lives, works, and writes from his small hobby farm in northwest Minnesota. His educational background is in agriculture with an emphasis in poultry and avian science.
Originally published in the April/May 2025 issue of Backyard Poultry and regularly vetted for accuracy.
