A new Serama-sized game bantam

[Florida Bullfrog]

The brood cock above is my chosen American game bantam brood cock. He is brother to hen on the left and uncle to the hen on the right. He is father of all the micro birds. The mother to all the micro birds is the hen on the right and a BBR sister to that hen that died after their clutch was incubated.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

There are still nominally red junglefowl in the world of varying degrees of purity. The current state of the biology does not recognize the red junglefowl as being extinct. Yes, many have interbred with domestic chickens, but when bred back to junglefowl the junglefowl traits dominate, much like how bison traits dominate among the current bison herd even though most are actually hybrids with domestic cattle.

As for show standards, there is a red junglefowl bantam the ABA recognizes, and the fact that there was once a junglefowl bantam that was recognized would suggest even those junglefowl bantams weren’t pure.

In this thread I both chronicle my Cracker junglefowl hybrids and discuss and take feedback on the existence of red junglefowl in the deep South in the 1800s and 1900s. Deep into the thread I uncovered some evidence that red junglefowl hybrids were common on Southern homesteads in the late 1800s. It was likely a red junglefowl hybrid that Frank Gary used to create the American game bantam as opposed to a pure specimen. The original RJF hybrids in the South were likely rustic heritage stock descended from birds the Spanish would have imported to their Gulf Coast colonies.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ngle-fowl-in-the-american-deep-south.1309995/

The American game bantam is also extinct if measured as birds descended from Frank Gary’s line. But, if other birds are bred to AGB standards, they are in fact AGBs. So it would be with the red junglefowl bantam.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The red junglefowl bantam cock is just a bit over 1.5lbs, a lot smaller than the wild bird.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

We have teacup chicks. Looks like most or all 10 hatched, but I didn’t keep her lifted for long. I’ll take a better look tomorrow.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I’m in the process of downsizing my projects. But I am going to keep this project going. The micro offspring are doing well. Very healthy and vibrant. They have a strong RJF look. This stag will have his first adult molt this summer. I am excited to see what his adult plumage looks like. I am hoping his tail drops some carriage.

 

[AnnaWolf]

I don't know where you got the idea that Dutch have smaller legs, they don't.

Nugget at 2.5 month's

Nugget at 10 month's.
She weighs just 485 grams.
I think you meant chabo's(japanese bantam) they do have shorter legs.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

View attachment 2955726

View attachment 2955730

These are two OEGB hens used in creation of the American game bantam line, both paired to Tyrant the Cracker brood cock in this top photo. Since then no new blood has been added, everything has been line bred to the F1s. This micro line comes from breeding the F2s to their F1 uncle. The F1 uncle is consistently throwing these small, long legged, birds across multiple hens, including a small frame Cracker hen I put him to.

I did have some longer legged OEGB grey hens that came off of a farm near me and a self-blue rooster I obtained as a feral chick from another part of the state that I considered an OEGB, but may have actually been an AGB. Their genetics never made it into the line.

View attachment 2955733

You can really see the difference, nice!
Is there any particular reason you didn’t breed in the other OEGBs?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Sorry. Fawn must be the wrong discriptor. I mean OEGB hens that look like this

BBR OEGB hen (not my picture)

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I think the red junglefowl standard lies in the original Gallus gallus species description. You can find a sumry on Wiki. Among other things, the description includes the presence of an eclipse plumage during the period June to October. So, in an ornathological evaluation, any chicken not having an eclipse plumage is not a RJF. Indigenous Red Junglefowl are wildlife, not domestic animals, and they should be treated as such.

The original species description would not apply to Gallus gallus domesticus, the domestic chicken.. So, I concede. Call them whatever you want. But, the ornathologists came first.

I don’t see a reason for contention. By default the red junglefowl bantam doesn’t exist in nature, as its decidedly smaller than the natural red junglefowl. Its apparently an archaic breed that the American Bantam Association recognized in times past that we’ve pretty much forgotten about.

A wild red junglefowl wouldn’t even be showable at domestic poultry shows. A wild junglefowl would beat itself to death in a cage in the showroom or promptly die of disease afterward. They are very fragile outside of their native Asia.

Historically the Javan red junglefowl, Gallus gallus bankiva, was considered the “domesticated” red junglefowl by ornithologists. They believed it was the missing link between the original red junglefowl and straight combed gamefowl. Thus the reason straight combed gamefowl sometimes are labeled “bankivoid” gamefowl.

I am not sure that DNA testing has born out the notion that the Javan red junglefowl fathered straight combed gamefowl. But it demonstrates that ornithologists have believed for a long time that there is a continuum between junglefowl, gamefowl, and domestic chickens where there is a lot of overlap. It would make sense that breeders in the late 1800s and early 1900s wouldn’t have a problem calling a breed of junglefowl hybrid simply a junglefowl.

More than a few straight combed gamefowl have full eclipse molts.

 

[raingarden]

Hey, @Florida Bullfrog. Have you ever been up to Fitzgerald, Georgia to see their wild junglefowl. They have a really interesting story that is worth looking up. They even have a Wild Chicken Festival in the spring. From the photos, they have some junk hybrids roaming around that should be culled. But, they also have authentic-looking RJF. The prominent white earlobes and horizontal tail carriage are impressive.