Burmese chicken

The Burmese or Burmese Bantam 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.

Burmese
Other namesBurmese Bantam
Country of origin
  • Myanmar
  • United Kingdom
Useornamental
Traits
Weight
  • Male:
    570 g[1]: 108 
  • Female:
    450 g[1]: 108 
Egg colourwhite
Comb typesingle
Classification

History

Charles Darwin mentions the Burmese Bantam in his Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication of 1868.[2]: 269  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.[1]: 106 [3]: 330  William Flamank Entwisle received one of these birds, apparently a carrier of the creeper gene, and bred from it.[4]: 50 [5]: 190  By the beginning of the First World War the breed was believed to be extinct.[1]: 106 [3]: 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.[1]: 106 [5]: 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.[1]: 106 [3]: 330 [6]

Characteristics

The Burmese 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.[1]: 106 [3]: 330  The Dutch re-creation is black.[7]

References
  1. 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.
  2. Charles Darwin (1868). [https://archive.org/details/b2199450x_0001/page/268/mode/1up The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. London:John Murray.
  3. 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.
  4. William Flamank Entwisle (1894). Bantams. Wakefield: Edith H. Entwisle.
  5. Sophie McCallum (2020). Rare British Breeds: Endangered Species in the UK. Barnsley, Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 9781526763631.
  6. Burmese. Kenilworth, Warwickshire: Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Accessed October 2021.
  7. Liste des races et variétés homologuée dans les pays EE (28.04.2013). Entente Européenne d’Aviculture et de Cuniculture. Archived 16 June 2013.
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