Quite possible the most outlandish thing in the otherwise conservative agrarian community of
Dale's Edge , the dire huhn is the extensive, selective breeding by the founder Vogel family, Randolf. The dire huhn is a massive horse-sized version of the common huhn (a subspecies of the common chicken). Randolf Vogel had become so obsessed with the huhn that he sold all his family's worldly goods to purchase a hold near the forest outside of Dale's Edge and every huhn for sale in a hundred mile radius. Over the next decade, Randolf scraped by selling the eggs that his huhn lay while still working on strict breeding to attempt to increase egg production. Though he was not able to change the egg productivity of the huhn, he was seeing a dramatic uptick in size of the huhn. What started out as a chicken sized avian now appeared to have grown to the size of dog. Randolf then became obsessive of his "lovely ladies" and worked tirelessly breeding and crossing huhn genetics until after sixty years of labor, Randolf took a ride into town for supplies. The townsfolk were stunned to see the bird brained Randolf astride a huhn as large as a horse.
A CULTURAL STAPLE
Though Randolf Vogel's eccentric breeding was seen as the whiles of a crazed mind, the town of Dale's Edge adopted the dire huhn as a crowning cultural achievement, even going so far as to become adopted as the sigil of the ruling family, the Hennebergs. Over the last thousand years, the entirety of the region around Dale's Edge has adopted the everyday use of the dire huhn for everything from beast of burden plowing fields to war mount for the brave soldiers and man-at-arms who keep the region safe.
BIOLOGICAL MAKEUP
The dire huhn sits at around fourteen hands (about 56 inches or 142 centimeters) to the base of the neck and weighs anywhere from 1,400 to 2,100 pounds. They can pull as much as an ox while still having the swift movement of the fastest horse. Coloring ranges from black (rare) to shades of brown (most common). Different variances include those with a waddle and comb like their gallus cousins, though this is extremely rare and sought after. The most rare and expensive dire huhn are those with black plumage, waddle and comb as well as a fuller tail. This rare variant are referred to as a vollhuhn, a hälftehuhn as those with only waddle and comb, and all others as viertelhuhn.
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