Standard
Varieties of Chickens:
Cornish and White Indian Games
The Indian Game (figs. 36 and 37) has many fine
qualities to recommend it to the breeder, and for
many years past has been on of the most popular of
fowls. In plumage the male is green-black without
penciling; the wings, chestnut, with bay and
metallic black wing bar; the feathers of the neck
hackle are short and hard, green-black, with
delicate crimson-brown shafts.
The plumage of hen is
very difficult to obtain, and should be a
combination of nut-brown and green-black throughout,
green predominating. Along the breastbone of both
male and female the feathers part and allow the skin
to show just at or above the upper point of the
keel-bone. This is a distinctive feature of the
breed, and shows from the time the chicks shed the
down.
The breast is very wide, round, and prominent,
and should always be oval and full in contour; the
thighs are well rounded, nicely tapering, and think
and meaty next the body; shanks, very stout, well
scaled, and deep orange in color; back toe should be
almost flat on the ground; tail, close and hard,
carried well out, and sickles rather short; wings,
tightly-folded, the ends of the secondaries rounding
off abruptly and resting close against the tail or
just above it; eye, yellow approaching gray; beak,
yellow, or striped with horn color. The Indian Game
is a beautiful bird, and its every movement bespeaks
its high breeding.
FOR
FURTHER READING...
The first image below comes from the Oklahoma State
University Department of Animal Science's Poultry
Breeds pages. The second image is from the FeatherSite, "an on-line zoological garden of domestic poultry". The Cornish
page from Oklahoma and the Cornish page from FeatherSite contain
further information about this breed's
history and more images of these fowl. Clicking on
each image takes you to the page specifically about
that particular variety.
Image Credits
(from left to right):
Copyright © 1996, Oklahoma State University
Board of Regents;
Courtesy of Jeff Iurato
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