Serama Vertical Carriage vs OEGB and Japanese Bantam

The Serama has several distinct traits that separate it and make it different from an Old English Game Bantam or a Japanese Bantam.The most important of those is the Serama’s vertical carriage.

If you don’t have vertical carriage, you don’t have a Serama. More on this later.

When you look at a Serama, you should immediately have your eye drawn up and down as you “look over” the bird versus the side-to-side of most chicken breeds.  Our eye should be drawn vertically to assess the bird.

Retired Judge Edgar Mongold once suggested described drawing a box around a Serama’s body to evaluate this. If you draw that box and you end up with a square or a sideways rectangle, something is wrong. You want to have a rectangle that stands on its end. That is the correct vertical type and carriage that a Serama should have.

Here are some pictures using SCNA’s standard images and a bird that belongs to one of our follower’s (used with permission) where I have added edits to illustrate this.