Bantam (poultry)

A bantam (Indonesian: Ayam kate) is a small variety of poultry, especially chickens. Etymologically, the name bantam is derived from the city of Bantam - currently known as "Banten Province" or previously "Banten Residency" - once a major seaport, in Indonesia. European sailors restocking on live fowl for sea journeys found the small native breeds of chicken in Southeast Asia to be useful, and any such small poultry came to be known as a bantam.

Most large chicken breeds have a bantam counterpart, sometimes referred to as a miniature. Miniatures are usually one-fifth to one-quarter the size of the standard breed, but they are expected to exhibit all of the standard breed's characteristics.

Characteristics

Bantams are suitable for smaller backyards as they do not need as much space as other breeds. Bantam hens are also used as laying hens, with some breeds laying up to 150 eggs per year. However, Bantam eggs are only about one-half to one-third the size of a regular hen egg. The Bantam chicken eats the same foods as a normal chicken. In commercial situations they are fed grain-based foods because this is convenient and efficient for the producer. Chickens in the wild eat more insects and vegetation than grains.

Poultry

Poultry (/ˌpoʊltriː/) are domesticated birds kept by humans for the eggs they produce, their meat, their feathers, or sometimes as pets. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails and turkeys) and the family Anatidae, in order Anseriformes, commonly known as "waterfowl" and including domestic ducks and domestic geese. Poultry also includes other birds that are killed for their meat, such as the young of pigeons (known as squabs) but does not include similar wild birds hunted for sport or food and known as game. The word "poultry" comes from the French/Norman word poule, itself derived from the Latin word pullus, which means small animal.

The domestication of poultry took place several thousand years ago. This may have originally been as a result of people hatching and rearing young birds from eggs collected from the wild, but later involved keeping the birds permanently in captivity. Domesticated chickens may have been used for cockfighting at first and quail kept for their songs, but soon it was realised how useful it was having a captive-bred source of food. Selective breeding for fast growth, egg-laying ability, conformation, plumage and docility took place over the centuries, and modern breeds often look very different from their wild ancestors. Although some birds are still kept in small flocks in extensive systems, most birds available in the market today are reared in intensive commercial enterprises. Poultry is the second most widely eaten type of meat globally and, along with eggs, provides nutritionally beneficial food containing high-quality protein accompanied by a low proportion of fat. All poultry meat should be properly handled and sufficiently cooked in order to reduce the risk of food poisoning.

Poultry (disambiguation)

Poultry refers to domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, meat, feathers, or as pets.

Poultry may also refer to:

Poultry, London

Poultry is a short street in the City of London, the historic nucleus and modern financial centre of London. It is an eastern continuation of Cheapside, between Old Jewry and Mansion House Street, towards Bank junction.

Etymology

Poultry takes its name, like other roads nearby such as Milk Street and Bread Street, from the various produce once sold at Cheapside (meaning "market-place" in Old English). John Stow, writing at the end of the 16th century noted that "the poulterers are but lately departed from thence into other streets".

History

In the 15th and early 17th century, Poultry was noted for its taverns, but few were rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666.

The church of St Mildred Poultry once stood on the north side of the street. Rebuilt after the Great Fire to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, it was demolished in 1872 and its site sold and used to build the Gresham Life Assurance office. In 1891, Henry B. Wheatley wrote that, with the removal of the church,

The street gave its name to a prison, Poultry Compter, once located there. It was a brick building with fifteen wards, one of which was set aside specifically for Jews. It was closed in the early 19th century, and its prisoners transferred to the new White Cross Street Compter.

Bantam

Bantam may refer to:

Places

Popular culture

Technology

Bantam (military)

A bantam, in British Army usage, was a soldier of below the British Army's minimum regulation height of 5 ft 3 in (160 cm).

During the First World War, the British Army raised battalions in which the normal minimum height requirement for recruits was reduced from 5 ft 3 in (160 cm) to 5 ft (150 cm). This enabled otherwise healthy young men to enlist.

Bantam units enlisted from industrial and coal-mining areas where short stature was no sign of weakness. The name derives from the former town of Bantam in Indonesia, from which a breed of small domestic fowl allegedly originated. Bantamweight was a weight category in boxing that had originated in the 1880s and had produced many notable boxers.

The first bantam battalions were recruited in Birkenhead, Cheshire, after Alfred Bigland, MP, heard of a group of miners who, rejected from every recruiting office, had made their way to the town. One of the miners, rejected on account of his size, offered to fight any man there as proof of his suitability as a soldier, and six men were eventually called upon to remove him. Bantam applicants were men used to physical hard work, and Bigland was so incensed at what he saw as the needless rejection of spirited healthy men that he petitioned the War Office for permission to establish an undersized fighting unit.

Bantam (missile)

The Bantam (Bofors ANti-TAnk Missile) or Robot 53 (Rb 53) was a Swedish wire-guided anti-tank missile developed in the late 1950s. It served with the Swedish and Swiss armies from 1963 and 1967 respectively. It can either be deployed by a single man carrying a missile and control equipment or from a vehicle. It has been fitted to the Volvo L3314 and the Scottish Aviation Bulldog. In the Swiss Army, it was mounted on Steyr-Daimler-Puch Haflinger light wheeled vehicles.

Description

The missile is carried in a rectangular launcher box, which is connected to a control box by a 20-meter cable, allowing for a degree of separation from the operator. The missile can be set up in around 30 seconds by a single man. The transporter/launcher box is pointed toward the expected direction of the enemy and the control box is attached to it using the cable. The control box consists of an optical sighting device and a joystick, which transmits commands to the missile via two thin cables that are trailed behind the missile.