THE KUROGASHIWA   <return to JAPANESE BREEDS index

THE BLACK OAK

(Sometimes written: Kurokashiva, Kurogashiva or Kuro Gashiwa)

The Kurogashiwa is considered a part of the Japanese long-tailed ornamental fowl breeds and even though many have lengthy crows, it is not officially a part of the Japanese "singers" categories.

It is important to distinquish the Kurogashiwa from the similar-looking Tomaru and certain aspects can be used as a general rule of thumb: the Tomaru has a more landrace type, deeper in chest and thicker and shorter in body with a much higher-held tail. The Gashiwa has a longer more pheasant-like body. Many Tomaru have a lot of extra black pigmentation through the face, sometimes completely covering the faces of the adult females and freckling the faces of the males. These aspects may also be in some Kurogashiwa lines, but greatest distinguishing factor is that the Kuro is a Long-tail and the Tomaru is NOT.

There is also said to be a pure-white form of the Gashiwa of which I have only seen one picture.

The Gashiwa is a slow grower, coming later to maturity. In their second year, the secondary sickels reach the ground and grow nearly the length of the main upper sickles.

The sattle feathers are very full but not expressly long. This rooster's crow is long and deep, without undulation and sounds very un-chicken-like. Some sources say that the Gashiwa isn't a long-crower and shouldn't be classified as such, but all the birds extent in Europe have exceptionally long crows. The first crows of our rooster caused me to run out outside to see what manner of beast had come into the garden.

The faces of the hens are completely black, the roosters' are black-red with much black pigmentation at the base of the single combs. The soles of their feet are dark olive and the legs are black with olive hints. The nails on their toes should be dark ivory-grey. A large bird, the hens have an excellent brooding nature and are excellent mothers. If regularly handled, this breed can be very tame and make exceptional pets.

My old breeding stock in the late 1990’s came from that of Knut Roeder in Osnabrück, Germany and were the only known birds of this race outside of Japan. Today I know of a small breeding group on the Isle of Man who also sent us hatching eggs in 2008 from which we have one hen to-date (spring 2009).

Please note the distinctively long sickles in the tail but the "normally short" saddle feathers. This is an important difference between the TOMARU and the KUROKASHIWA. The KURO is a long-tail fowl breed of great antiquity, the TOMARU is a country chicken type with a beautiful, long crow and the same pitch-black pigmentation of the KUROKASHIWA but not the up to 1 meter long main sickles as seen in the birds above.  Another distinguishing factor, at least in the birds that I have studied, is the horizontally carried tail and back in the KURO. The TOMARU has a tail that is carried higher and is longer-legged than the KURO.

This shot on the upper left is from Mr Tatematsu of Japan and shows the distinguishing factors I mentioned above: well-set body, medium-length leg, horizontal carriage, full tail (here with a nice addition of mutant sickles and coverts) that touch and drag the ground. The saddles are full but not long. Combs should be medium to medium small in size and the points should be no less than four. Europeans prefer 5 - 6 as an average, but as yet I have not seen a Kurokashiwa with more than 5 points on the comb.

The hen pictured below, also by Mr Tatematsu (used here with permission), shows the extra pigmentation in the face of many of the hens of this breed. My hens were pitch-black in the face.