I get a lot of people linking to things on The Art of Doing Stuff Facebook page. Stuff they want me to see.
Most often it's either about potato chips, chickens, or pizza.
On rare occasions it's about something that doesn't have to do with food. I don't like those rare occasions. They make me itch.
Pizza can make you itch too but only if you eat it while sitting in a patch of poison ivy. Which would be worth it for even the worst piece of pizza.
So when Julie put up a chicken link on my Facebook page the other day I thought … Huh … a chicken link! Actually I said …. Huh! A chicken link! outloud and sprayed potato chips all over my computer.
What I opened up when I clicked on that link was a whole new world.
Allow me to introduce to you via Julie, via Geekologie ...
This photo is not Photoshopped. This is what the actual chicken looks like. Every single bit of it is black.
Everything.
This chicken's skin, bones and organs … are black.
You might think it's ugly. Horrifying even. A freak of nature. I love it.
The Ayam Cemani is a breed of chicken from Indonesia. And I want one.
Which is a shame because you can only buy them in pairs. And they're $5,000 per pair. Unless you do some REAL digging on the Internet in which case you can pick up a pair from Green Fire Farms for the low, low price of $1,999.
On the other hand a black Sharpie only costs a couple of bucks.
So. What do you think? The Ayam Cemani.
Breathtakingly Beautiful or Shockingly Scary?
Linda J Howes
Statuesque! It is nice to know they exist but I could live without one.
Linda J Howes
I mean to say, I could live without possessing one. It is enough to know they are out there.
jainegayer
Beautiful!! I think you should go into business selling black chickens. No wait... it might be a success and you won't have time for us anymore.
Tigersmom
Both! But as the idea settles in more to the beautiful. The iridescence is pretty spectacular.
Not that I would eat it, but does anyone know what color the meat is and what it turns when cooked? I keep imagining it is black, too, and becomes a charcoal grey color. Not a pretty charcoal grey, more of a sickly version of a color I normally love. A sickly and very unappetizing version.
Do they sell the feathers for a small fortune, too?
Robin
This is new for me. I've never wanted a chicken. Now I want a black chicken.
Stephanie
Gorgeous!
Karen
I bet they still taste like...chicken!
Kim C.
Wow! Very majestic looking.
Edith
I have found a better offer in Switzerland: 3 CHF for a hatching egg, 20 CHF for a one-day-old chick, 44 CHF for a 12-weeks-old hen and 48 CHF for a 14-weeks-old rooster. So yes, you should establish a profitable export/import business between Europe and Canada!!! I have no idea how to take them overseas alive and kicking, but maybe some black magic could help ....
Mandy
Beautiful but $2000!
We need to set up a profitable export/import partnership Karen!
Have just googled and here in the UK hatching eggs £10 each, unsexed chicks £30, fully grown £50!
Karen
Woo hoo! That's far more reasonable. :) ~ karen!
Mandy Dunbar
OMG! I got a reply from Karen!
Day = made
Violet
Stunningly gorgeous! But the photo of the dead chickens, scary as hell. Even putting aside the fact that I'm a vegetarian and could never eat anything I want to shnoogle, I have to wonder what sort of maniac would want to kill a $2,500 chicken? And what sort of other maniac would be willing to shell out that sort of money to eat one? People with more money than sense, I guess. If I had one of those chickens, I'd take it to the movies and let it share my birthday cake and it would sleep in a little wrought-iron bed. Hopefully one of them will see this and hitchhike to my house.
Karen
Hi Violet, lol. I think the point is to buy the pair for $2,500 as breeders. And then keep them to continue hatching and breeding the black chickens, which you then sell. :) ~ karen!
Suzy Ross
I am gaga about Fresian horses who are black EVERYWHERE, so I can totally dig a black chick! I used to have two Austrailian black hens who would follow me around while I cleaned the horse stalls. They were named Amy and Ida and they always reminded me of Catholic nuns gathering up the skirts of their habits as they ran hither and yon. They were very involved in my day and left me an odd greenish colored egg when they had a mind to. Amy was the most gregarious of the two and followed me from stall to stall helping with cleanup. After all, I, with the rake, had "the worlds biggest chicken claw" Amy had ever seen. And she followed me everywhere. I adored them! I would never consider them for the broiler though. The roosters maybe, because they coukd be such heathens, but not the hens.
peg
oh my, I do love black. crazy beautiful.
Ramona
Stunningly beautiful!!!
Kristin Ferguson
Frickin' awesome in every way except the price. Are they good layers?
Amber
wait, what?? black magic chicken??
that's not food, is it?
And here I spent all day teaching my friend how to weld a chicken sculpture. Is something gonna come after me? evil Chicken-from-beyond-vengence-thingy?
Seriously?
Meg
obviously what you need to do, is get on the black chicken bandwagon and breed them.
step 1: buy two chickens, step 2: let 'em do their thing, step 3: profit.
Meg
oh and I think they're gorgeous.
Barbie
Breathtakingly EXPENSIVE! You gotta really love you some chickens to pay that kind of money for two!
HOWEVER....I do think they are beautiful yes......that being said......TO MUCH $$$$$$ me thinks anyway.
Carla
Alive they are beautiful. Dead they do indeed look like something we would throw out as past it's prime.
Denise
Beautiful!!! Like a raven crossed with a chicken. Stunning!
Anne
I think he is gorgeous! You are into unusual things, maybe if you save up your pennies you could have a pair? If you only got the rooster, maybe your hens would help him produce hybrids. Naw, you need a matching pair.