#bantam

Vintage Paperback - Choose Your Own Adventure #01: The Cave Of Time by Edward Packard

Art by Paul Granger

Star Trek 4 by James Blish

Art by Lou Feck

Vintage Paperback - Doc Savage #020: The Secret In The Sky by Kenneth Robeson

Art by James Bama

A Bantam Cock Feathursday

MORE CHICKENS!

As any of our regular followers know, we just love chickens! This handsome follow is an illustration from Bird Portraiture (“How To Do It” Series No. 35) by noted British naturalist artist and illustrator Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979), published in London and New York by The Studio in 1945.

Bantams are small varieties of fowl. For almost every large breed of chicken there is a bantam counterpart. A true bantam chicken is naturally small and has no large counterpart. We don't know the breed depicted by this illustration, but we suspect that it is probably a true bantam. Perhaps one of our followers can affirm or refute that.

Our copy of Bird Portraiture is from the collection of the Library of the Akron Art Institute with its bookplate, and is a gift to UWM Special Collections from our friend Tony Drehfal.

View more posts with works by Charles Tunnicliffe.

View more Feathursday posts.

Today's animal of the day is the Barbu d'Anvers breed of domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus)!

Photo credit: Wiedeco

Also known as the Antwerp Belgian or Belgian Bearded d'Anvers, this Belgian breed of chicken is what's known as a true bantam breed. While nowadays, many breeds of chicken are often referred to as bantams, all true bantams are descended from a handful of small chicken breeds native to Southeast Asia. Most of these ancestral breeds originate from islands, such as those of Indonesia, and are super small compared to mainland chickens due to insular dwarfism. This is the evolutionary trend that causes animals on islands to become smaller than their mainland counterparts due to a lack of food and space. The tiny size of these chickens also made it easier for them to be kept on ships, and so they became very popular with sailors, which caused them to be imported all across the world.

Photo credit: Alchemist Farm

The Barbu d'Anvers is believed to have been created sometime during the 1800s, with the oldest mention of this breed dating back to 1858. In addition to their miniature stature, other characteristics of this breed include fluffy feathers on their chins that form a "beard", a small rose-shaped comb, and either super small or non-existent wattles. They are only really kept as pets or as show birds, since they don't have a lot of meat on them and lay small eggs. There are 29 distinct color variants of this breed that are recognized by chicken shows in Belgium, plus six more that are only formally recognized in Germany (for some reason). These colors include: black, buff, mottled, blue quail, porcelain, white, cuckoo, and many more.

Photo credit: Poultry Club South Africa