Brian Reeder: The Brahma

The Brahma

The Brahma arrived in the West with the cochin, and in fact, in many instances, the two were the same, with pea combed and single combed birds often arriving in the same shipments, and alternately referred to as shanghais, Cochin Chinas, Chinas, Chittagong, Brahma, etc. It is in the West that the two forms were separated and distinguished into two distinct breeds. It is said that the original Brahma came from the Brahma-Pootra region on the India/China border, and were the result of crosses of Cochin like birds (nine catty) with Aseel. This seems highly likely, as the malayoid features are most prominent in the Brahma of all the Asiatics, though from the size and upright form of all Asiatics, it would seem that they all have some descent from malayoid type birds.

As with the cochin, the early Brahma were tall, upright birds with little leg feathering and fairly tight feathering. It was in the West that the Brahma became what it is now. The Brahma went through phases much like the cochin. In the late eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds, the Brahma for a while in England and America, was bred up to be as fluffy as the cochin, but this trend was reversed and the breeders went back to a tighter feathered form. However, that form was still much fluffier than the original birds.

In America in the late eighteen hundreds, the Brahma was one of the premier meat breeds in the US, with the famous Boston roasters being Light Brahma. In the US there are two forms of the Brahma; the show form, which is very large, fluffier and usually very poor in production and the commercial strains (catalog hatchery Brahma), which are much more like the original form, are bred for egg production, are smaller than the show form and are often bred to be feather sexed. There are three recognized varieties in the US; "light" (silver Columbian), "dark" (silver partridge or silver "penciled") and "buff" (buff Columbian). In Europe there are several other varieties. Below is a collection of pictures and art illustrating the history of the Brahma in the US.

Old Type Brahmas

1867:

Photo of a mounted specimen of a Brahma from 1867, with a drawing based upon that specimen, showing what it would have looked like in life. This bird is typical of the birds that were imported during the Cochin craze and the early development of this breed.

1868:

1870:

1887 & 1892:

You can see from these pieces of art and the picture from 1867, that the early Brahma in the US was a tall bird with little leg feathering and fairly tight feathering. Also take note of the fact that the tails are at a fairly high angle, somewhere in the range of thirty-five to fifty degrees. In this regard, the early Brahma were more langshan-like. Also note that some of the drawings seem to show vulture hocks. These were later much despised by the exhibition breeders and were bred off. The Brahma, while being refined and bred up for color and pattern during the last half of the eighteen hundreds, changed very little in it's basic form. It was in the very last decade of the eighteen hundreds that the form began to change, with the tail angle coming down, the fluff increasing and the leg feathering increasing.