Do you mean like 6.5' of feathers?
Yeah, 6.5 Ft long, but he broke off 32". Susumu is 4 Lbs.
That doesn't seem like many molts for a bird with feathers that long.
No, they skip molts. No known pures exist in the US, but I think I'm getting close to having things put together. Check out the standard. It explains a lot.
standard
Do they get enormous pinfeathers or do the long ones start out normal size and grow bigger?
Not especially large, some maybe half the size of a drinking straw. Lots of blood though.
This was him at 4.5 months. All of the pink is blood. The adult feathers are larger and have more blood. The whole tail and back of the bird is covered in these. Makes them fragile.
They are extremely soft feathered. The males are covered in hackle in areas where other breeds have none. The entire sides are sometimes hackled even more than shown here.
do they taste different from regular chickens
sorry, couldnt help myself....
No idea.
..actually i was looking into these guys when i lived in the country but never got any....just had ducks and geese.......
They're a lot of work. They have to be housed carefully, heated in the winter, handled and exercised every day, and fed a specific diet.
In the mid 1990s UG Athens found Gallus varius (
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=gallus varius&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi) in their background. That busts the old notion that every chicken comes only from Gallus gallus. Since that time, Gallus sonneratii has been found in other breeds.
G. varius is notoriously a challenging tropical species to keep. These have to be kept off of certain grains, fed meat, fruits, vegetables, etc. True to G. varius' wild diet of fruit, greens, crustaceans, and large insects. Almost like Gallus gallus' head on a mutated G. varius body in a way.
Hakuraikou last month at 17 months of age, missing/replacing 16 juvenile tail feathers. So not at maximum fullness here. 22" (now 23") saddles, 4 Ft tail.