A new Serama-sized game bantam

[Florida Bullfrog]

Red Junglefowl do not exist anymore so the RJF bantam cannot exist either.

You can get something that looks close from fawn (wild type) OEGB hens and BBR OEGB rooster. Getting the white earlobes, tuft of down at the base of the tail and truncated call in the rooster is the hardest part.

What do you mean red junglefowl don’t exist anymore?

 

[NatJ]

They reasonably conform to the ABA standards for the Red Junglefowl bantam, a breed I’ve never heard anyone talk about before.

I never heard of it before either, but now that I look, it is on the list of breeds recognized on the American Bantam Association website. Neat!

https://www.bantamclub.com/recognized-breed-and-variety

Red Junglefowl do not exist anymore so the RJF bantam cannot exist either.

The American Bantam Association recognizes a breed called "Junglefowl" in a color called "red." So yes, a breed by that name DOES exist, and is clearly the one OP means ("ABA standards for the Red Junglefowl bantam" cannot reasonably refer to anything else.)

 

[raingarden]

What do you mean red junglefowl don’t exist anymore?

They have all been interbred with modern chickens. Once the DNA has been contaminated you cannot clean it up again.

You may be able to read this paper by clicking on the "view PDF"
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...allus-gallus/EDC0CFBCA673C41F39E298CB7BDC87F8

If that doesn't work I can email the PDF to you.

 

[raingarden]

The American Bantam Association recognizes a breed called "Junglefowl" in a color called "red." So yes, a breed by that name DOES exist, and is clearly the one OP means ("ABA standards for the Red Junglefowl bantam" cannot reasonably refer to anything else.)

The name Red Junglefowl, Gallus gallus, was already taken by the ancestral bird. If the ABA decided to recognize a breed called Velociraptor would that mean the original Velociraptor is no longer extinct?

 

[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.

 

[NatJ]

The name Red Junglefowl, Gallus gallus, was already taken by the ancestral bird. If the ABA decided to recognize a breed called Velociraptor would that mean the original Velociraptor is no longer extinct?

They can call a breed anything they want.
The name of the breed has nothing to do with whether the original wild jungle fowl or the original velociraptor is extinct.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Oh.... OK. I thought they had to have black breast and red to be BBR. I have BBR roosters born from wheaten-colored black tail buff gamefowl hens and identical (and related) BBR roosters born from hens that look like your picture.

Varieties like wheaten and BBR look different for hens and roosters. However, a BBR rooster is genetically closer to a BBR hen than a wheaten rooster.

 

[raingarden]

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.

They like to say our wild chickens are descended from RJF bought here by the polynesians that discovered and settled Hawaii 1500 years ago. Before arriving in Hawaii, the Polynesians and their RJF spent 500 years hopping from one island to another across the Pacific. Polynesians are decendents of the Lapita culture that inhabited part of the natural range of RJF in Asia.

I really wanted to believe that the wild chickens in our backyard are Red Junglefowl. However, that is really a stretch because so much has happened since the first contact between native Hawaiians and Europeans 500 years ago.

The English explorer Captain James Cook was fond of bringing domesticated animals from Europe to trade with the Polynesians. There are several accounts of him leaving chickens on various Polynesian islands. Those were likely Dorkings sourced in his home port of Southampton. However, there is no record of Cook leaving chickens in Hawaii before the Hawaiians killed him for attempted kidnapping.

The fate of the original RJF in Hawaii is unknown. Ancient Hwaiians were expert agronomists and resource managers. There is little doubt that they cultivated chickens either intensiely or extensively. But, there was also a history of famine due to climatic conditions and the many waves of epidemics caused by introduced diseases to which the Polynesians had no innate resistance. You have to wonder how a chicken would stand a chance on an isolated isalnd surrounded by starving humans.

My guess is that the original RJF in Hawaii were most heavily impacted by Filipino imigrants who came to Hawaii in the very early 20th Century to work on the sugar plantations. There are accounts of Filipinos getting off the boat carrying their prized gamecosk and organized chicken fighting soon became a popular pastime throughout the islands. There was money and prestige to be made in chicken fighting so those that could afford it would import more birds from their homeland in the Philippines and elsewhere to fight the local birds. Anyone raising gamefowl knows that the cull rate is high. Some of the culls were eaten but many escaped or were just released. Now, there are feral chickens everywhere around here.

Some of these mysteries are currently being solved through high-tech genomic studies. I love this kind of stuff.

 

[raingarden]

I think the red junglefowl standard lies in the original Gallus gallus species description. You can find a summary 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 domesticus, the domestic chicken.. So, I concede. Call them whatever you want.

 

[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.