Chicken Breed Focus - Ayam Cemani

[sumi]

Mystical, unusual, rare and shrouded in mystery, the Ayam Cemani breed is hard to ignore, or forget, once seen in the flesh. The word "Cemani" means "total black" and best describes this unusual breed that is rumoured to be black as tar right down to it's organs! Pure Cemanis sport black combs, wattles, skins and feathers. A look inside their mouths should show a black tongue as well.

Originally from Indonesia, off the island of Java, the breed is shrouded in mystery. Little is known about the origin of the breed, except that they have been used for centuries by warriors and shamans as sacrifices, or to bring good luck and wealth to their owners. The breed was reintroduced to Europe by a Dutch breeder by the name of Jan Steverink and has since been introduced to the United States as well. Pure Cemanis are highly sought after and steadily gaining popularity with breeders in Europe, the UK and USA.

Details:

Origin: Indonesia
Purpose: Ornamental
Egg laying: ± 70 eggs annually
Broodiness: Poor
Climate tolerance: Fair
Weight: Cock: 4.4 - 7.7 lb Hen: 3.3 - 4.4 lb


Pic by @cafrhe




Pic by sumi


Pic by sumi


Pic by @Pyxis

BYC Breed Reviews:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/ayam-cemani-chicken

BYC Breed Discussions:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1047687/ayam-cemani-breeding-discussion/0_30
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/862688/the-american-cemani-breeders-club-open-forum/0_30
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/849946/ayam-cemani-pure-black-chicken-inside-and-out/0_30


Do you own Ayam Cemanis? Are you an Ayam Cemani breeder? If so, please reply to this thread with the your thoughts and experiences, including:

· What made you decide to get this breed?
· Do you own them for fun? Breeding? Some other purpose?
· What are your favorite characteristics about this breed?
· Post some pics of your birds; male/female, chicks, eggs, etc!

We have a bunch of other awesome breed-focus threads for you to enjoy. You can see all of them here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-project.975504/

 

[p1k4]

Hi there my name is Fábio Correia im from Portugal and in this moment i only have ayam cemani in my yard in my opinion wath you can see most in europe and in EUA are not cemanis , this is a extremly rare chiken and only 30/40% of the chikens you gonna rise are a good one's !!
Sorry for my english i hope you enjoy the pics!





















http://www.facebook.com/avescorreias/

 

[KippenPlatform]

Here some pictures from my Ayam Cemani birds









If you want more information. Send me PM

 

[KippenPlatform]

Thank you Sumi !!! Those birds are Beautiful !!!

Because there are many negative comments about these birds, they are aggressive if not properly deal with it, you should watch out for attacks,
that's totally not true !!!

They are more active than other chickens, but also curious what you are doing.
I never had any problem with the Ayam Cemani's!
But if you were going to breed this race, you will need to be aware of the following points.

Alot of breeders are not honestly about the tongues of those birds and often say that they have them
They telling also they are compleet black..... Also when they are chicks ?
But if you reed the story below you will understand it much better.

I hope that alot of people will read this and will open up there eyes .....

We ended up exchanging our opinions and breeding/hatching experience.
Many people who try to breed Ayam Cemani face similar problems at some point.
These could be development of red combs/wattles/face, white skin/toes/toenails/feather, significant difference in size of chicks and mortality rates during and after incubation.
Us, breeders, are all striving for perfection in our birds.
Well, we all have this same problem with Ayam Cemani then. Let me point out what it is.

Firstly, there is a need to point out that pure Ayam Cemani birds don’t always produce 100% black chicks.
In fact, you must be very lucky to find a 100% black chick. During the 17 years of breeding experience the Dutch breeder has only seen 1 pure black chick with black tongue. Another friend of mine who breeds Indonesian line has seen only 2 in his lifetime. So to answer the question if the black tongue exists the answer is, yes it does BUT… do we really want to go this far to end up with a chicken that is all black inside out?
Apparently, an intense pigmentation in embryos can lead to blockage of capillary veins and high mortality. That's why it is important that the pigmentation must be balanced. The line that was almost 100% black resulted in hatching rate dropping to below 10% and it was not caused by the cockerel not doing his job! In such lines many embryonic death, fail to hatch, or very slow development are often found as the organs get clogged with pigment.
On the other hand very late hatchings tended to be the most “off colour”, sometimes even resulting in almost black and white chicks. This is something we both experienced within our lines. Searching for more scientific explanation I did further reading on this problem to confirm what I was suspecting, that imbalance of some amino acids inside an egg can cause such embryonic abnormalities. So again, this is nothing to do with the parent birds not being of good enough standard.
White toes and soles indicate less intensive pigmentation. Once mature these birds will get purple faces. However, don’t confuse purple faces with red faces/combs/wattles! Purple faces happen in Ayam Cemani and obviously they are not desired trait but clear red colour indicates that the line may not be pure and it could have been crossed with another breed in earlier generations.
I feel I cannot argue with someone who has got 17 years of experience breeding Ayam Cemani and previously experienced them in their origin country. Both of us have hatched Ayams directly from Indonesian lines and compared results. We both were quite surprised to see that many similarities!

Hope this was helping out.... if you want to know more, Feel free to ask !!!!

 

[Pyxis]

Thanks for using one of my pictures in your post sumi! I'll share a couple more:

 

[rossfam06]

No, they lay a cream to tan egg. I posted a picture a few posts ago. Cayuga ducks, however, do lay black eggs, if you want a bird that lays black eggs for you

X2!!!! I love my hatchlings from you Pyxis!

Here is Bruce Wayne. (Has cockerel behaviors)

 

[rossfam06]

So here are the one week old shots of my little AC chicks I hatched from Pyxis eggs!

 

[Cali Farms]

Hi all, I'm new here and wanted to show some of my Ayam Cemani. Let me know what you think.







I bred allot and culled hard and kept only the best of the best and repeated. That's what I have been doing and I'm getting some great results with this strategy.
I also am offering some of my Cemani eggs and chicks for sale here.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Thank you

 

[sumi]

@KippenPlatform thank for the info, that was very interesting! The beautiful pullet in my pics and I bumped into each other (literally) at a show in Co Cork last year. I was so startled to suddenly find myself face to face with one of those legendary chickens, I said the first thing that came to mind

Thank goodness, the Irish have a wonderful sense of humour.

 

[Pyxis]

Why you are cross those birds ?

For fun. I wanted to see what crosses look like. There's no harm in it unless I was passing them off as purebreds and trying to sell them to people as such, which I am not. I crossed them when I didn't have a rooster and couldn't have produced purebreds, and when my rooster hopped his pen into my egg layer flock and fertilized the hens in there.

On egg color, cream to tan is permitted for the proposed US Standard (which is actually the Indonesian standard, where the birds originated from, and actually there is no mention of egg color at all).The cemanis imported into the US lay a cream egg, as mentioned by their importer (Greenfire Farms) in their info on them, and being a little more heavily tinted would be fine here. The only white eggs I've run across here in the US are, ironically, from crossbred cemanis that were bred out to leghorns. In fact, in Indonesia, on the kedu plains, where the breed originates, they are a landrace, not really bred for anything but meat, so varying egg colors would not be surprising. It's a little hurtful to say that if someone's birds don't have one particular trait that is in a standard in one country, they couldn't possibly be purebred. I'm sure you meant no offense, but no one likes it when it is suggested they have impure birds

If you're interested in checking out the proposed US (and Indonesian) standard, you can check it out here