What chicken is this??! I must have it. Its perfection!

[kvmommy]

 

[juliechick]

The bird is a Modern Game Bantam from the UK. They have been bred there to have dark skin, comb, face and wattles. This quote from a UK breeder will hopefully explain the origin of their bird's color. Some breeders in the United States are working on the Brown Reds and Birchens to get them to have darker combs as well. So far, only a few breeders have them.

Hi I'm from UK and have bred Birchins since 1978 ! In 1996 the late Richard Billson wanted to bantamise Sumatra Game and came to me for a Birchin Cock to put over large Sumatras and the resultant offspring were on their way to produce the bantam variety. I had struggled for 19 years to get the correct male face colour in Bantam Male Birchens .. always brownish eyes and dark red combs !
So I had two most looking "Modern" females back from Richard and put a red faced Birchen Cock over them. The very first breeding produced some black skinned, black eyed, black combed males. Very few faults !!
Voila! we had corrected the face colour! These were gradually distributed through the fancy and crossed into Brown Reds, Lemon Blues and Silver Blues. These have also now gone to Europe. So that's the true story in UK how we acheived.
Now we still get a few red faced thowbacks but generally they breed true.
That's the true story from UK .. Alan
ps. they are black skinned.

Read more: http://showbirdbid.proboards.com/thread/1808/brown-red-modern-bantams?page=2#ixzz2NFTKkdXY

 

[Pele]

There seem to be a lot doubters about the purebred nature, he looks Modern Game to me but I don't know the breed. However, I am revising and adding to my original guess after research to add Modern Game Bantam. I don't have time to copy and post pictures, but here are links to websites with photos:

Feathersite shows Lemon blue and Brown Red pictures with black skin: http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/Games/Mods/BRKModernBty.html

Here is the UK Club site, initial drawing is the bird we are looking at: http://www.moderngameclub.co.uk/

The only reference I could find to breed standards was on a UK site with drawings indicating that Blues, Brown Red, Black and Lemon Blue have black skin http://website.lineone.net/~alanhiggs/brownred.htm :
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"IN BOTH SEXES: Beak very dark horn, black preferred. Eyes, comb, face, wattles and ear-lobes mulberry (gypsy) as dark as possible. Legs and feet black."[/FONT]

I'm sorry, but the research doesn't support this bird being a purebred. The standard calls for Mulberry skin, not black. Mulberry is a shade of red. None of the pictures that you link are true black birds, just mulberry. Also, skin color aside, Lemon Blues doe not have laced patterns on their chests as this bird does.

But, if you truely think that this bird is a purebred, an easy way to check is to post it to the Modern Game thread in the Breeds forum. They are experts there, and would be able to instantly analyze the bird. I think it's definitely worth doing, since this seems to be a point of interest to a lot of people.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I raise moderns, including lemon blues. Lemon blue, brown red, silver blue and other crowwing patterns have breast lacing as is shown on the photos posted by dretd. Gypsy face and dark legs are not the same as black skin. To see if the skin itself is dark you need to look on the body. The wingpit and vent are the easiest areas to see. You will certainly get more experienced feedback in the modern thread. I've had mine for a couple of years.

 

[aghiowa]

what breed is the one in the back?

 

[bird sitter]

I've heard those birds are pretty rare to find. It might be a similiar bird though.

 

[dretd]

Looks like a Modern Game. Don't know the breed very well, though and not sure on the color.

 

[nova022]

Wow! Beautiful, but it looks kind of prehistoric.

 

[Pele]

Black skinned birds are fairly rare. I'd say this one is either an ayam cemani or kadaknath crossed with a game bird.

edited to add: I really like Ayam Cemani birds. They don't have any color.... at all. Just midnight black everywhere. They're lovely.

 

[kvmommy]

I just googled the ayem cemani and they are gorgeous. The bird does kinda look like a mix of the ayem cemani and modern game. I want this bird so bad. I've never seen anything quite like it!