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Sumatra

The Black Sumatra is a rare and beautiful Asian long tail chicken with rich lustrous beetle green...
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General Information

Breed Purpose
Ornamental
Comb
Pea
Broodiness
Average
Climate Tolerance
All climates
Egg Productivity
Low
Egg Size
Medium
Egg Color
White
Breed Temperament
Aggressive, wild, restless and flighty
Breed Colors/Varieties
Black is the only color admitted into the standard but other colors are available.
Breed Size
Large Fowl
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The Sumatra breed is a native of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. They were originally imported from Sumatra in 1847 to the U.S. and Europe for the purpose of cockfighting, but today the breed is primarily kept for exhibition. Sumatras are primarily an ornamental breed kept for their attractive plumage. Most often they are a lustrous black with a green sheen throughout the body and tail. The breed comes in blue and white varieties, as well as the unstandardised splash - a natural result of breeding blue chickens.

The Black Sumatra was admitted to the APA Standard in 1883.

The Black Sumatra is a rare and beautiful Asian long tail chicken with rich lustrous beetle green plumage. It originally was inported from Sumatra for cockfighting, but is now exclusively an ornamental fowl.

The Sumatra has a personality closer to that of a wild game bird than a domestic chicken. The male has a graceful carriage and lustrous greenish black feathers. The cock should have a long sweeping tail, with an abundance of long sweeping sickles and coverts, carried horizontally (females tail carriage 15 degrees above horizontal).

Multiple spurs on males are desired as well as practically no wattle development. Comb and wattles are expected to be a gypsy (purplish-black) color, while their skin is yellow. Shanks should be black with the bottom of the feet being yellow.

They are fair layers of medium size white or light tint egg.

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Sumatra chicks

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Sumatra juvenile

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Sumatra hen

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Sumatra rooster

For more on this breed and their owners' and breeders' experiences with them, see our breed discussion here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-sumatra.1143674/
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Latest reviews

AllenK RGV
Pros: Hens are reliable near daily layers first year and overwinter, after 18 months they stop in winter. Frequently Broody. Roosters are pure eye candy! Predator avoidance hen or roo.
Cons: Frequently Broody. Even if you get a cockerel past the hormonal period watch out for him in the spring as that sweet boy may turn quickly on you. Cockerels are unruly.
We have been keeping Sumatra since 2017 and ran my first flock purely as free rangers once they hit the 2.5 month grow out phase. All cockerels got themselves culled by my intolerance of their behavior. Our 2018 batch is still with us one hen culled her self from the flock by apparently harassing the dogs(being a recently broken broody) in the wrong part of the yard and was sent packing. This batch had only one cockerel survive he was culled in Spring 2019 during the breeding season for spurring/scarring me between the eyes at the PM feeding time. I still like the breed but think I might hatch out a small batch of Ayam Cemani and mix them as I love black lusterous feathers in sunlight. I am not overly concerned about keeping my lines clean vs actually having roosters I do not need to always cull out.
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R
Gray Farms
Pros: Beautiful. Very good broodys. Very good table fowl.
Cons: Can be flighty. Can be aggressive.
I've raised Large Fowl Black Sumatras for over 15 years. If you can get over the flightiness and low egg count they are the best birds. Absolutely beautiful birds, they shine like emeralds in the sun. They are fairly quiet birds. Very productive setting hens. They will set multiple times a year and hatch most of their eggs. Their dark faces, multiple spurs, and long tails can not be found in any other breed. Some evidence points to Sumatras being one of the original breeds of chickens same as in Red Junglefowl. I butcher old hens and young cockerels every year. And they are very good table fowl. They taste how chicken is suppose to taste. Egg count is low in Sumatras, but I don't know anybody who raises Sumatras just for the eggs. Roosters can be very aggressive. But its not all that common in my experience. In 15 plus years I can only remember one rooster I would have called aggressive.
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MysteryChicken
MysteryChicken
I have a Sumatra cockerel, & he's the most snuggly bird I have besides Silkies.
Other genetic studies shown that Sumatras are the ancestor of Silkie Chickens.
Read more…

Comments

kaycountry1016
Kritsen, Mercy Me! I hope I don't go nuts and get any Sumatras LOL. They sound scarey. I think I'll stick with my good GIRLS--RIR, BR, BA SLW, BO. I enjoyd reading your post. 10.13.15
 
KristenG
Haha, well - I hope and think that probably not all Sumatras are like the ones I got. Would need to read the whole collection of posts to get a better sense of the breed. But I thought I would post my personal experience because even though it is limited, it does reflect some of the differences within the breed. A person's previous chicken experiences with other breeds will drastically influence the ratings as well, I am sure. I have extensive "other breed experience" but this is my so far limited experience in this particular breed. And I have had many breeds, most of which I immediately liked much better than the Sumatra. For example - I liked the standard Wyandottes and RIRs I had several years ago, too :)
 
E
Wow, so many things being said about Sumatras, they are really one of the most beautiful of the breeds of chickens. I had them years ago, but I had to give them up because they attacked my kids. I am thinking of getting them again, but I would have to get a new coop. I would want to keep them by themselves in order for them to breed true. It is not easy to keep human aggressive roosters. This morning I was jumped by my brown leghorn cockerel, Rufus. I am hoping he doesn't become too bad. I don't kill chickens any more than I would kill any other animal. It does make life difficult. I caught him and carried him with me to do the feeding. He didn't like that and ran away from me when I put him down. Maybe he will learn for next time, but I doubt it. Anyway, I love Sumatras.
 

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Category
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