Burmese Bantam
Illustration by Harrison Weir, 1896 | |
| Conservation status | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Burmese |
| Country of origin |
|
| Use | ornamental |
| Traits | |
| Weight | |
| Egg colour | white |
| Comb type | single |
| Classification | |
| |
The Burmese Bantam or Burmese is a British breed of bantam chicken. It apparently originated in Myanmar, formerly Burma, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. By the time of the First World War it was thought to be extinct. Some surviving individuals were discovered in the 1970s and were bred with white Booted Bantams to recreate the breed. It is a true bantam – there is no corresponding large fowl.
History
The Burmese Bantam is documented at least as far back as 1847, when it received a passing mention from Edward Blyth, the curator of the museum of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta (now Kolkata).[5]: 390 Charles Darwin uses it as an example of a creeper chicken in his Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication of 1868,[6]: 230 and also compares its bones to those of other chickens and jungle fowl;[6]: 269 he collected a specimen, now in the Natural History Museum of London.[7]: 2 According to the Poultry Club of Great Britain the Burmese derives from birds sent to the United Kingdom from Burma in the 1880s by an officer in the British Army.[4]: 106 [8]: 330 William Flamank Entwisle received one of these birds, apparently a carrier of the creeper gene, and bred from it.[9]: 50 [10]: 190 By the beginning of the First World War the breed was believed to be extinct.[4]: 106 [8]: 330
In 1970 some were given to Andrew Sheppy, who had established the Rare Poultry Society. He bred them with white Booted Bantams and successfully re-established the breed.[4]: 106 [10]: 190 An attempt has been made in Holland to re-create the Burmese by cross-breeding other bantams, but the results do not closely resemble the birds shown in historic drawings by Harrison Weir and J.W. Ludlow of the original stock.[4]: 106 [8]: 330 [3]
Characteristics
The Burmese is a true bantam – there is no corresponding large fowl.[4]: 106 It resembles the Booted Bantam, but is smaller and lower to the ground; it has a small crest. The legs are short, with heavy feathering. The comb is single, the earlobes are small and the wattles drooping and fairly long. Only one colour is recognised by the Poultry Club of Great Britain: the white.[4]: 106 [8]: 330 The Dutch re-creation is black.[11]
References
- ^ Barbara Rischkowsky, Dafydd Pilling (editors) (2007). List of breeds documented in the Global Databank for Animal Genetic Resources, annex to: The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN 9789251057629. Archived 23 June 2020.
- ^ Breed data sheet: Burmese / United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Chicken). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed April 2026.
- ^ a b Burmese. Kenilworth, Warwickshire: Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Accessed October 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h J. Ian H. Allonby, Philippe B. Wilson (editors) (2018). British Poultry Standards: complete specifications and judging points of all standardized breeds and varieties of poultry as compiled by the specialist breed clubs and recognised by the Poultry Club of Great Britain, seventh edition. Chichester; Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 9781119509141.
- ^ Edward Blyth (1847). XXXIX. Critical Remarks upon Mr. J. E. Gray’s published Gaialogue of the specimens of Mammalia and Birds presented by B. H. Hodgson, Esq., to the British Museum. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, including Zoology, Botany and Geology. XX (84): 382–394.
- ^ a b Charles Darwin (1868). The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. London: John Murray.
- ^ Madlen Stange, Daniel Núñez-León, Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Per Jensen, Laura A. B. Wilson (2018). Morphological variation under domestication: how variable are chickens?. Royal Society Open Science. 5 (8): 180993. doi:10.1098/rsos.180993.
- ^ a b c d Victoria Roberts (2008). British Poultry Standards: complete specifications and judging points of all standardized breeds and varieties of poultry as compiled by the specialist breed clubs and recognised by the Poultry Club of Great Britain, sixth edition. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 9781405156424.
- ^ William Flamank Entwisle (1894). Bantams. Wakefield: Edith H. Entwisle.
- ^ a b Sophie McCallum (2020). Rare British Breeds: Endangered Species in the UK. Barnsley, Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 9781526763631.
- ^ Liste des races et variétés homologuée dans les pays EE (28.04.2013). Entente Européenne d’Aviculture et de Cuniculture. Archived 16 June 2013.