Bassette Liégeoise
A Belgian true bantam with eighteen colour patterns.
via Wikipedia: Bassette Liégeoise · see source
The Bassette Liégeoise, or Bassette, is a Belgian true bantam chicken, meaning it is not a smaller version of a large breed. It is bigger than typical bantams but still much smaller than standard chickens. Most Belgian bantam breeds, including this one, face extinction. There are eighteen officially recognized color patterns, but many are seldom seen.
Quick Facts
- Country
- Belgium
- Distribution
- Flanders, Wallonia
- Latin
- Gallus gallus domesticus
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- Its name 'bassette' means 'little chicken' in the Liège region of Wallonia.
- In 2013 the total population was reported to number only 47 birds, with no data reported since.
History
The Bassette Liégeoise shares its origins with the Belgian Bantam, both deriving from the small partridge-coloured bantams known in Flemish as Engelse kiekskes. In the Liège area during the nineteenth century, a variable small chicken called bassette was thought to result from inter-breeding these bantams with local breeds and was valued for hatching gamebird eggs. William Collier of Brussels began selective breeding around 1917 to improve consistency and egg production. A breed standard was drafted in 1930 and approved in 1932. The breed is found in Flanders, Wallonia, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, but remains rare and at risk of extinction.
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