The British Belgian Bantam Club

Information about the Club

Membership (within the United Kingdom) is £6.00 (under 16’s £3.00) due 1st November annually or £72.00 for life membership. Families may pay one membership but show under their joint name, whilst under 16's in the family may pay one juvenile membership but may show under individual names.

Just print off and fill in a membership form (or ask us to post you one) and enclose your membership subscription and send off to the address on the form. You will receive a receipt, the Standards for the Belgian breeds, a newsletter and contact details of those members who wish to be on our Breeders List, with the breeds and colours that they keep.

We send out three newsletters per year and these contain many interesting items along with the results of the major shows. Should you wish to contribute to the newsletter please send your article in writing or e-mail it to us and we will include it in the next newsletter.

We have approximately 180 members and we take the Club stand to the classic shows: the National at Stoneleigh and the Federation at Stafford, both held in December, and our Club Show held in Newbury in February. If you would like to ask any questions or require any information we will be pleased to see you at the above shows.

On joining the Club you will be eligible for winning the Belgian Club trophies (a very extensive list) and also at the other shows you will qualify for the rosette voucher if your bird wins the Best Belgian award.

We have badges for sale at £2.50 showing the Belgian Bantams. The Breed Club Handbook is also available to members of the club at £18.00 plus £1.50 p&p. Included within the book is everything you need to know about Belgians with lots of colour and black and white plates of the Belgians. A must for the Belgian member.

Good luck with your Belgians and hope to see you in the near future.

Belgian bantams need patience but still gain increased popularity

by Veronica Mayhew (writing around 1973)

Belgian bantams appear to be gaining increasing popularity. It is with this in mind that I pen these few notes. So many fanciers and (dare I say?) judges get bogged down by the detailed description of the breed in the "British Poultry Standards". But with a few basic principles in mind and with the far greater number of birds to be seen and studied at shows now, many more people should be able to feel reasonably competent about discussing Belgians.

The Belgian bantam was first brought to England from its country of origin in 1911. A display of the breed was staged at the Crystal Palace two years running by fanciers from Belgium. These displays created great interest and English bantam fanciers were quick to take up the breed.

The two varieties seen here today are the Barbu d'Uccle, or, to give a literal translation, the "Bearded from Uccle" and the Barbu d'Anvers - the "Bearded from Antwerp".

These two varieties of Belgian are really quite distinct from each other but, as their unusual colours are common to both, they tend to be classified in people's minds as one and the same variety. The difference is that the Barbu d'Uccle is feather-legged and has a single comb and the Barbu d'Anvers is clean-legged and has a rose comb.

The Barbu d'Uccle Belgian is characterized by its abundance of plumage and majestic manner. The neck hackle in the male is very thick and the feathers are curved and arched to form what we call the "Boule". The hackle should be so developed that it reaches the saddle, so covering the bird's back.

In the female the neck hackle feathers are again convexly arched and appear to form a mane. The "headpiece" is completed by a full muff and beard, the feathers forming three distinct lobes. Wattles are rudimentary, or as small as possible, so as not to detract from the shape of the head and neck plumage.

The wings are carried low in both the male and female. They often cover the vulture hocks which are made up of quill feathers starting from the lower outer thigh and inclined at the same angle as the wings.

The footings should be as plentiful as possible, following down the moderately short shanks from the hocks to the end of the middle toe. The stance of the bird is very important - the cock should stand, as inferred by the words "majestic manner", with his chest held high, in an upright position, his tail balancing this by being carried almost at right angles to the back. The hen should stand in a similar way, a little less accentuated though and the tail is carried a little lower.

The Barbu d'Anvers Belgian should have a less majestic mien than the Bardu d'Uccle and more of a persistent "showing off" nature particularly with the cock, who should strut about with his head thrown back and wings carried so far forward (sometimes in front of his legs) that, at the appearance of a human being, he comes to the front of the pen doing a "shuffle-like" dance. This provocative character is an essential feature of the clean-legged Belgian.

The male has a thick hackle - arched and giving a cape-like appearance. In the female the broad and rounded hackle feathers all curve backwards, thus forming a ruff. The muff and beard should not be tri-lobed as in the feather-legged Belgian but should be in the form of a collar, when viewed from the front.

The wings of the female are not carried as low as in the male but, on the other hand, they must not be held really closely to the body. The male carries the tail almost perpendicularly and the two main sickle feathers should be broad and only very slightly curved. It is carried full in the male, but less open and at a lower angle in the female. Shanks should be fairly short and it is a characteristic for Belgians to be "on their toes".

The colours in Belgians are one of the breed's main attractions, so numerous and different from any other breed we have in England. Again many people get muddled with the names and definitions of some of the colours.

I suppose the millefleur and porcelain are two of the most difficult colours to understand particularly in the males. But if one generalises and remembers that both are basically tri-colours and that the ground colour should be as even as possible throughout both sexes, one is half way to the goal.

The tri-colour effect is best seen on both the male and female on the breast feathers. In the millefleur the ground colour is golden mahogany, each feather being marked with a black spangle and a v-shaped white tip.

The porcelain is merely a dilution of the millefleur, the golden mahogany being replaced by straw, and the black by pale blue.

There is also confusion at times between the self-blue and the lavender. The Belgian is one of the few breeds where the self-blue is a blue that requires a distinct lacing and darker hackle feathers in the male. The lavender is entirely different - a very pale blue, going well down into the under-colour and the progeny are all lavender.

The quail, the most popular colour in the clean-legged Belgians, consists basically of a dark top with light under parts. In the male the beard and breast feathers are nankin (a biscuity-buff) laced with ochre. In the female the breast feathers are pure nankin.

A throstled breast, even if only slightly so, is a serious fault. The neck hackle feathers of the male are black, sharply edged with a golden buff and having light shafts. The saddle hackle is striped and the tail a lustrous black. The female has a top colour which is a dark chocolate and each feather should be finely laced with buff and have nankin shafts. A good hen has a top with a velvety appearance, difficult to describe, but easily recognised when met with.

I have endeavoured to jot down a few of the salient points regarding type and colour in the Belgian bantam and I should like to end by saying that there is plenty of room in the Belgian world for more breeders. Belgians are not difficult to rear, fertility is good, hatchability good and incubators or broodies can be used with equal success.

Patience is needed by the fancier with the Barbu d'Uccle in particular, as eighteen months is needed for the full development of that essential "type". But what is eighteen months when the average Belgian can remain in the breeding pen and the show pen for several more years than most breeds? I repeat: there is plenty of room for new breeders.

Show Diary

All shows take place subject to the Avian Influenza (Preventative Measures) Regulations. For the latest situation please see DEFRA.

Newsletter

The 107th edition of the British Belgian Bantam Club Newsletter, dated June 2008, was posted to all members of the club on Tuesday 13 May 2008.

Contributions for the newsletter are always very welcome! Please send us your contribution as soon as possible, and no later than Sunday 12 October 2008 for the 108th edition.

See newsletter photos in colour

(Click on the relevant cover)

The British Belgian Bantam Club was founded in 1915