The Old English Game is a British

breed A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slig ...

of domestic

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

. It was probably originally bred for

cockfight A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...

ing. Two different standards are recognised by the

Poultry Club of Great Britain The Poultry Club of Great Britain is a registered charity founded in 1877. Its stated purpose is to "safeguard the interests of all pure and traditional breeds of poultry including chickens, bantams, ducks, geese and turkeys". The club maint ...

Carlisle Old English Game Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City ...

and Oxford Old English Game. There is also an Old English Game bantam.

Characteristics

The Old English Game has many colour variants. Twenty-eight are recognised by the

American Poultry Association The American Poultry Association (APA) is the oldest poultry organization in the North America. It was founded in 1873, and incorporated in Indiana in 1932. The first American poultry show was held in 1849, and the APA was later formed in respo ...

, while the

Entente Européenne d’Aviculture et de Cuniculture Entente, meaning a diplomatic "understanding", may refer to a number of agreements: History * Entente (alliance), a type of treaty or military alliance where the signatories promise to consult each other or to cooperate with each other in case o ...

lists thirty-three. In Britain, thirteen colours are recognised for the Carlisle type, and thirty for the Oxford type.

Use

Since the abolition of cock-fighting in 1849, the Old English Game has been kept primarily for show. Old English Game hens may lay about forty small tinted eggs in a year.

References

{{British livestock, R.4 Chicken breeds Chicken breeds originating in the United Kingdom Animal breeds on the RBST Watchlist