Thirty Years Development Observation of Braekel Chicken (Gallus turnicus) into Arabic Chicken in Indonesia

摘要

Arabic chicken was first developed in Batu, Malang, East Java, Indonesia in 1995. After that, the chickens spread rapidly throughout theisland of Java and even throughout Indonesia. Initially, Arabic chickens were used as laying hens. However, over the years Arabic chickenshave also been developed to become meat producers to replace native chicken meat. Arabic chickens have high egg production ability,making it easier for farmers to produce large numbers of eggs. The chickens also have a similar growth rate and meat quality to thoseof Kampong chickens. This is the reason Arabic chickens now-a-days mainly are kept to produce meat. In Indonesia, Arabic chickens aredeveloped by small farmers, making it difficult to control genetic pollution due to inbreeding with other types of chickens. There havebeen some deviations found in the qualitative characteristics of Arabic chickens. Originally, the colour of Arabic chicken feathers was onlysilver and gold, with a black beak, black skin, black shank and a single comb. However, currently, there are Arabic chickens withsilver-golden and white-golden feathers, yellow and white beak, skin and shank and a walnut-shaped comb.