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Japanese Bantam

A pair of black-tailed Chabo
Other names	Chabo Shojo Chabo Katsura Chabo
Country of origin	Japan
Distribution	South Asia
Use	fancy
Traits
Weight	Male: 510–620 g Female: 400–510 g
Skin colour	yellow
Egg colour	cream or tinted
Comb type	single
Classification
APA	single comb clean-legged
EE	yes
PCGB	true bantam
APS	true bantam softfeather light breed
Chicken Gallus gallus domesticus

The Japanese Bantam or Chabo (Japanese: 矮鶏) is a Japanese breed of ornamental chicken. It is a true bantam breed, meaning that it has no large fowl counterpart. It characterised by very short legs – the result of hereditary chondrodystrophy – and a large upright tail that reaches much higher than the head of the bird.

History

The origin of the Chabo is unknown. Mitochondrial DNA evidence suggests that it, and all other Japanese breeds of ornamental chicken, derived through selective breeding from fighting chickens, the ancestors of the modern Shamo breeds. The earliest recognisable depiction of a Chabo in Japanese art dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century; a short-legged chicken with tall upright tail shown in the Portrait of Jacoba Maria van Wassenaer by Jan Steen, painted in about 1660, is believed to be a Chabo.

Japan was effectively closed to all foreign trade from 1636 until about the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The first documented exports of the Chabo to Europe and the United States began at about this time. The Japanese Bantam apparently reached the United Kingdom in the 1860s; it was not included in the first British poultry standard of William Tegetmeier in 1865, but was described in his The Poultry Book in 1867. A breed society, the Japanese Bantam Club, was formed during the Crystal Palace Poultry Show of 1912.

In 1937 an international breed club – the International Chabo Bantam Club – was formed at a meeting in Switzerland.

Characteristics

The Chabo has very short legs. This trait is caused by the creeper gene, Cp, which displays the standard behaviour of recessive lethal alleles: when short-legged birds are bred, 25% of the embryos are homozygous for the lethal allele, and die in shell; 50% are heterozygous, and develop into short-legged birds; the remaining 25% are homozygous for the non-lethal allele, and develop longer legs, making them unsuitable for showing. Long-legged birds bred to each other can not produce short-legged offspring.

In western countries there are many colour varieties of the Japanese Bantam. The Entente Européenne lists forty-two, of which twenty-three are recognised, with standardised colours including birchen grey, black, black mottled, black-tailed buff, black-tailed white, blue, blue mottled, blue-red, brown-red, buff Columbian, cuckoo, dark grey, golden duckwing, grey, lavender, Miller's grey, partridge, red, red mottled, silver-grey, tri-coloured, wheaten and white. The American Poultry Association lists nine colours. There are also frizzle-feathered, Silkie-feathered and hen-feathered variations, though not in all colours.

In Japan a number of types are recognised. These include the Okina Chabo, which is bearded; two varieties of Higo-Chabo, the Dorama and Taikan, both with an unusually large comb (the Taikan has a normal Chabo tail, that of the Dorama is shorter); and the Shinguro Chabo or black-skinned black, which is entirely black, with black skin like that of a Silkie.

References

1. Breed data sheet: Shojo chabo / Japan (Chicken). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed June 2021.
2. Breed data sheet: Katsura chabo / Japan (Chicken). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed June 2021.
3. ^ Australian Poultry Standards (2nd ed.). Victorian Poultry Fanciers Association (trading as Poultry Stud Breeders and Exhibitors Victoria). 2011. p. 88 & 91. ISBN 9781921488238.
4. ^ APA Recognized Breeds and Varieties: As of January 1, 2012. American Poultry Association. Archived 4 November 2017.
5. ^ Liste des races et variétés homologuée dans les pays EE (28.04.2013). Entente Européenne d’Aviculture et de Cuniculture. Archived 16 June 2013.
6. Breed Classification. Poultry Club of Great Britain. Archived 12 June 2018.
7. 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.
8. Tomoyoshi Komiyama, Kazuho Ikeo, Yoshio Tateno, Takashi Gojobori (2004). Japanese domesticated chickens have been derived from Shamo traditional fighting cocks. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 33 (1): 16–21. ISSN 1055-7903. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.04.019.
9. ^ David Scrivener (2009). Popular Poultry Breeds. Ramsbury, Marlborough: Crowood Press. ISBN 9781847979711.
10. William Bernhard Tegetmeier (editor) (1865). The Standard of Excellence in Exhibition Poultry, authorized by the Poultry Club. London: Groombridge and Sons, for the Poultry Club.
11. William Bernhard Tegetmeier, Harrison Weir (illustrator) (1867). The Poultry Book. London; New York: George Routledge and Sons.
12. 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. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 9781405156424.
13. ^ Ardjan Warnshuis (April 2012). Chabo or Japanese Bantam. Aviculture Europe. 8 (2), article 4. Accessed June 2021.
14. Udo Ahrens (April 2012). Chabo Photos. Aviculture Europe. 8 (2), article 4a. Accessed June 2021.

Further reading

• Joseph Batty (2005). Japanese Bantams. Midhurst: Beech Publications. ISBN 9781857363661.
• John K. Palin (1980). Understanding Japanese Bantams. Hindhead, Surrey: Saiga.

• Bantam chicken breeds
• Chicken breeds
• Creeper chickens
• Chicken breeds originating in Japan