What Is A Bantam?

[team_realtree]

I hear the term so much. Is it just a breed of chicken that is smaller? Can one breed, say for example RIR, be bantam sized and standard size or is a breed either big or small?

Is that the only difference between the bantams and standards? Size?

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Mostly the only difference is size. Some breeds have standards and bantams. There are a few breeds of chickens that are "true bantams" which means they only come in bantam size, like Silkies, d'Uccles, and d'Anvers, there are a couple of others, but those are just examples.

Usually bantams and standards of a particular breed look almost identical, but sometimes there may be something that's different, such as a slight difference in egg shade, that changed due to the genetics it took to make them small...

Hope it helps!!

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

This of them this way... bantams are miniature chickens.

 

[blackdotte]

True bantams are breeds that have no large fowl equivalent.
What we generally know as bantams are breeds of large fowl that have been reduced in size.
In some parts of the world only true bantams are allowed to be called bantams, the others are known as dwarfs.
david