CHIBI チビ軍鶏 (Chibi Shamo)
Extra large personality in a small package

Chibi / Tosa Chibi

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The word Chibi itself, written as チビ, literally means "runt". The word can be applied to anything and does not reflect specifically upon fowl. Instead it is often used in conjunction with its prefecture or used to describe an even smaller, but thicker built, variety of the Ko-Shamo classification. Used in this way Chibi gains its fowl oriented definition of a small breed with a confident disposition of a fighter.   The Chibi, a variant of the Ko-Shamo The people I spoke to myself in Japan considered the "Chibi Shamo" to be part of the very wide Ko Shamo spectrum - the Ko Shamo breed itself varying from prefecture to prefecture. The birds I saw called "Chibi" were small, chunky, shorter legged Ko Shamo. In Europe they like to regard it as a different breed and standardise the Ko as one particular type - which is not at all the way I found it to be in Japan myself. Those I spoke to about it were amused to find that they were considered a separate breed in Europe. I believe that Chibi are seen as a separate breed by some in Japan also though, but I never met one.   Above statement courtesy of Julia Keeling, Asian Gamefowl Society, Contact person for UK and the British Isles.

Above - a deep red, black-laced Chibi and a Tosa Chibi hen. They have all the fire and verve of a large Shamo, but in a tiny format. Superb!

 

The bird I photographed here below was a year-old. so if they are to develope as the CHIBI, they should grow the bull-dog like folds and wrinkles.

 

This diminutive gamefowl has a very tame disposition and this particular cock jumped up on the windowsill of his owner's kitchen and pecked on the glass to be fed! Little more than eight to ten inches tall, the head has a pronounced roundness and the beak is short and full, complimenting the very expressive, seemily large and whimsical eyes.

 

 

The comb form is a "strawberry" cushion comb with pearl-like beading. The red face must have an abundance of fleshy tissue, creating an extra depth of expression in its circular arrangement around the pearl-coloured eyes. The chest is held high and the typical gamefowl characteristic of a bare skin showing along the breastbone is also present in this little gnome. The body form is somewhat oval - not as elongated as in the KO SHAMO.

 

 

The PRAWN (SHRIMP) TAIL, i.e. the inverted outter flight feathers of the tail, is an extremely important aspect of this and a few other miniature gamefowl breeds. As seen in this illustration, the outter feathers curl upward on the outside of the arrangement of tailfeathers in the tail. The short and curved sickles are normally formed and act as a foil for the very ornamental Prawn (Shrimp) Tail feathers. No true CHIBI or KO SHAMO is without this very distinctive aspect. Another very particular (for us in the west) aspect of this and a couple of other miniature gamefowl breeds are the missing feathers in the wing, in German called the "Gefluegelluecke" or Wing Gap.

 

The WING GAP is yet another sign of pure bred CHIBI. Erroneously, many first imports of KO-SHAMO, YAMATO GUNKEI and CHIBI were thought to be defective because of the Wing Gap and Prawn (Shrimp) Tail, and many breeders began to wholesalely outcross to other bantam gamefowl breeds, creating "Bastardmischlingen" or "Muts". Any of these three Japanese breeds must have the Wing Gap as a distinctive part of their breed's characteristics. Outcrossing should be avoided at all cost. The CHIBI seems to be much cold hardier than the very delicate YAMATO which will not tolerate cold.