Green Junglefowl

     The Green Junglefowl, also known as the Javan Junglefowl, the Green Javanese Junglefowl, or the Forktail, is a member of the Pheasant family endemic to the island of Indonesia. It’s not only a beautiful and fascinating bird, but also able to fly over open water between the islands – which is an impressive achievement for a Chicken.

     The Green Jungle rooster has a mantle of iridescent bronzy green color and patterns similar to those seen in the Ocellated Turkey and the Green Peafowl. It has a vivid facial skin that contrasts against the dark scarlet red of its face. The Green rooster has also an ice blue center in its light blue comb, and a red wattle  bordered with blue on the edges, and yellow closer to the throat. While, the Green Jungle hen is smaller with no comb, and her plumage is attractively brown-mottled with some green feathers that appear occasionally, and like the rooster, she has pinkish-white legs.

     The Green Junglefowl usually lives in groups of two to five birds in the wild. These groups are led by a dominant male, who takes the flock to feed and drink and then back into the cover of the forest. Green Junglefowls have a natural diet unexpectedly high in coastal foods such as snails, small crustaceans, and even such items as tiny jellyfish or sand fleas. Those feeding materials aren’t practical to be provided in most aviaries, and that’s why the bird isn’t common in captivity. The breading season for the Green Junglefowl is from mid-April to June. The hen lays 5 – 10 tinted off-white eggs per clutch and incubates them for around 21 – 26 days.

     The Green Junglefowl is a very heat and humidity tolerant bird, but it may suffer from cold climates and other diseases of domestic chicken species. Interestingly, the bird is culturally important in Indonesia, where the males are routinely hybridized with female domestic chickens to produce a hybrid species, known as the Ayam Bekisar. The feral Ayam Bekisar is a famously tough bird, that reportedly survives in some areas without fresh water.