Exhibition-- As Terry Wibbles book so rightly states" First you build the barn then you paint it"----Colour makes the variety and Type makes the breed, In no other breed is type so important,without correct type no matter how good the colour, you don't have Japanese Bantams.
To be worthy of showing a Japanese Bantam MUST have short legs, a short back and erect tail carriage with the tail feathers well spread much like a fan.
Proper tail carriage accompanied by a short back will form a "U" shape between the tail and hackle, this "U" shape is very distinct in a good female, but is often concealed in the best males by the flowing hackle feathers over the back.
wheaten pullet showing good body shape-legs are too long and wings are carried too high---note the rounded full breast
The tail is to be upright , at 90 degrees but as the first tail feathers are curved forward it appears to be further forward of this mark.Tails falling to the side or carried forward past the head are faults.Ideally the tail should extend higher than the head of the bird by a third of its length.
Also Important are deep, well rounded breasts carried low and prominant enough to extend beyond the tip of the beak.
The body, overall should be short and blocky with good width from the shoulders to the base of the tail.
The Comb should be relatively large, ideally 4 or 5 even serations, and follow a downward line over the back of the head.
The skull must be broad to accomodate the comb.The wattle and earlobes should be well rounded and proportionate in size to the comb.
The eyes should be large, bright and round in shape.
The neck should be short and slightly arched with full flowing hackle feathers.
Wings should be carried low with the tips just touching the ground.
Although short thick legs are required for showing a bird who in every other aspect is a good example of the breed can be used in the breeding pen.
Colours--In Australia Japanese bantams are recognised in a multitude of colours in both straight and frizzle feathered varieties, most common are the Black-tailed White, White, Black, and Birchen .
Other colours shown in Australia in recent shows include Blue, black mottled, Blue mottled,Cuckoo, Grey (often confused with birchen), Black tailed Buff and Buff columbian and also old english game colours such as Black red, Wheaten, and Brown red---for a full list and descriptions of colours refer to the Australian Standards.
It is a common opinion that the multitude of colours has led to the decline in type of Japanese Bantams , type is worth many more points in judging than colour , as breeders we must, while aiming to perfect a colour, maintain type as our first priority.
Genetics and Japanese Bantams
The shortness of the legs is from a dominant gene which is lethal if the chick gets two such genes from its parents,they die before hatching so are dead in shell, some people have had very very short leg young hatch only to die within hours, whether these also have the double lethal gene has not been proved.
Exhibition, or short-legged Japanese Bantams have one short leg gene and one long (or normal) leg gene, it will pass one of these genes to each of its offspring.
So when both parents are short leg the resulting chicks can either have two short leg(dis) one long and one short gene (appear short legged) or two long leg genes ( appear long legged).
Calculated over a great number of chicks the resulting percentages will be25% dead in shell 50% short legs and 25 % long legs.
When mating a short and long leg pair the resulting split will be 50/50 for long and short legs, some breeders choose this route as they have a higher hatch rate but I don't because you don't get any more exhibition chicks only more long leg culls.
Long leg birds only carry two long leg genes so if mated together will produce 100% long leg birds.
Japanese Bantams also come in frizzled feathered varieties and the frizzle gene complicates things even more, it is considered semi-lethal.
Frizzling is an intermediate state between over curled feathers and normal feathers.
If two frizzled parents are mated you will get normal feathered birds, frizzle feathered birds and overcurled birds.
Over Frizzled birds are generally not viable and rarely reach maturity.
If you mate a normal bird and a frizzle feathered bird you get a 50/50 split but both would be suitable for showing if they are also short legged.
The German author, Rudolf Hoffman, in his Japanese Bantam Booklet noted, when mating 2 short-legged frizzled Japanese bantams of each 16 embryos, 7 are dead in shell because of the two lethal genes which the parents carry.
He does not say how many of the resulting chicks will be long legged culls, according to Mendels theory , it should be 3, so out of 16 embryos one would get 6 short legged potential exhibition birds, some of which would be frizzled and some of which would be normal feathered.
web links
http://www.ohionational.org/articles/japbantams.html
http://home.roadrunner.com/~jbba/JBBA.html
http://www.japanesebantamclubaustralia.com/clubprofile.htm
To be worthy of showing a Japanese Bantam MUST have short legs, a short back and erect tail carriage with the tail feathers well spread much like a fan.
Proper tail carriage accompanied by a short back will form a "U" shape between the tail and hackle, this "U" shape is very distinct in a good female, but is often concealed in the best males by the flowing hackle feathers over the back.
wheaten pullet showing good body shape-legs are too long and wings are carried too high---note the rounded full breast
The tail is to be upright , at 90 degrees but as the first tail feathers are curved forward it appears to be further forward of this mark.Tails falling to the side or carried forward past the head are faults.Ideally the tail should extend higher than the head of the bird by a third of its length.
Also Important are deep, well rounded breasts carried low and prominant enough to extend beyond the tip of the beak.
The body, overall should be short and blocky with good width from the shoulders to the base of the tail.
The Comb should be relatively large, ideally 4 or 5 even serations, and follow a downward line over the back of the head.
The skull must be broad to accomodate the comb.The wattle and earlobes should be well rounded and proportionate in size to the comb.
The eyes should be large, bright and round in shape.
The neck should be short and slightly arched with full flowing hackle feathers.
Wings should be carried low with the tips just touching the ground.
Although short thick legs are required for showing a bird who in every other aspect is a good example of the breed can be used in the breeding pen.
Colours--In Australia Japanese bantams are recognised in a multitude of colours in both straight and frizzle feathered varieties, most common are the Black-tailed White, White, Black, and Birchen .
Other colours shown in Australia in recent shows include Blue, black mottled, Blue mottled,Cuckoo, Grey (often confused with birchen), Black tailed Buff and Buff columbian and also old english game colours such as Black red, Wheaten, and Brown red---for a full list and descriptions of colours refer to the Australian Standards.
It is a common opinion that the multitude of colours has led to the decline in type of Japanese Bantams , type is worth many more points in judging than colour , as breeders we must, while aiming to perfect a colour, maintain type as our first priority.
Genetics and Japanese Bantams
The shortness of the legs is from a dominant gene which is lethal if the chick gets two such genes from its parents,they die before hatching so are dead in shell, some people have had very very short leg young hatch only to die within hours, whether these also have the double lethal gene has not been proved.
Exhibition, or short-legged Japanese Bantams have one short leg gene and one long (or normal) leg gene, it will pass one of these genes to each of its offspring.
So when both parents are short leg the resulting chicks can either have two short leg(dis) one long and one short gene (appear short legged) or two long leg genes ( appear long legged).
Calculated over a great number of chicks the resulting percentages will be25% dead in shell 50% short legs and 25 % long legs.
When mating a short and long leg pair the resulting split will be 50/50 for long and short legs, some breeders choose this route as they have a higher hatch rate but I don't because you don't get any more exhibition chicks only more long leg culls.
Long leg birds only carry two long leg genes so if mated together will produce 100% long leg birds.
Japanese Bantams also come in frizzled feathered varieties and the frizzle gene complicates things even more, it is considered semi-lethal.
Frizzling is an intermediate state between over curled feathers and normal feathers.
If two frizzled parents are mated you will get normal feathered birds, frizzle feathered birds and overcurled birds.
Over Frizzled birds are generally not viable and rarely reach maturity.
If you mate a normal bird and a frizzle feathered bird you get a 50/50 split but both would be suitable for showing if they are also short legged.
The German author, Rudolf Hoffman, in his Japanese Bantam Booklet noted, when mating 2 short-legged frizzled Japanese bantams of each 16 embryos, 7 are dead in shell because of the two lethal genes which the parents carry.
He does not say how many of the resulting chicks will be long legged culls, according to Mendels theory , it should be 3, so out of 16 embryos one would get 6 short legged potential exhibition birds, some of which would be frizzled and some of which would be normal feathered.
web links
http://www.ohionational.org/articles/japbantams.html
http://home.roadrunner.com/~jbba/JBBA.html
http://www.japanesebantamclubaustralia.com/clubprofile.htm
