If you asked an architect to design a chicken, what would be the result? Let’s assume that the architect in question had a modernist bent, and that her preferred color palette was black and white with shots of vibrant color.
The architect-designed chicken might look a lot like Fauntleroy, the bantam rooster we met on this year’s Seattle Tilth Chicken Coop Tour. This little cockerel looks like the chicken from an architect’s drawing, each gleaming silvery-white feather edged with a thick black line. And look at the visual pop of that red comb! I’ve seen some handsome chickens, but this rooster and his two matching hens took this architect’s breath away.
Fauntleroy is a Silver Sebright, a breed of bantam chicken developed by Sir John Sebright in England in the 1800′s. Sebright wasn’t an architect, but he certainly had an eye for graphic design. He was also a correspondent of Charles Darwin; Darwin cited Sebright’s breeding experiments in On the Origin of Species.
Sebright hens have the same striking coloration as the roosters. If we get chickens (yes, we’re thinking about it), one of them may have to be a Silver Sebright… just for the pure visual delight.
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Oh, man, I wish I’d known about that tour. We are seriously thinking about getting a couple of chickens, too. That Silver Sebright is stunning.
Gorgeous! Reminds me of a b/w Joan Crawford jacket I once had, with big shoulders and red buttons.
If you and Paul get chickens, we’ll invest in a share of the eggs. Fresh omelets . . . zabaglione . . . . mmmmm