Belgian d'Uccle Bantams

Booted Bantams

Barbu d'Uccle

In the US they are frequently referred to as Mille Fleur or Millies, in spite of the fact that Mille Fleur is only one of their color variants and it also appears in other breeds.

"Acorn" (right) and "Popcorn," a pair of Mille Fleur bantams
I got Acorn and Popcorn in 1979. They were the first purebred fowl I ever bought with breeding in mind. I found them at the first poultry show I ever went to and fell in love with Acorn the second I saw him.
Photo courtesy of Susan Loesser

One of the Belgian true bantams (meaning there is no standard-sized form), the bearded and booted Mille Fleur d'Uccle is one of the prettiest of fowl. The d'Uccles also occur in other color varieties, such as Porcelain, Black Mottled, Self Blue (self means solidly one color), and Blue Mille Fleur. They are single combed birds and the standard calls for vulture hocks, a disqualification in most breeds. (Vulture hocks are long stiff feathers protruding down and back from the hock joint. These can be better seen on my image of a Sultan male.)

The Mille Fleur pattern consists of a ground color of mahogany, with each feather marked with a crescent shaped bar of black and tipped with a V-shaped white spangle. The true coloring does not usually appear until the first adult molt. The Porcelains are patterned the same way, but the ground color is straw, and the barring blue with a white tip.

I found these birds to be so tame that it was often a problem to keep them from flying up on me when I didn't want to be wearing a few chickens! If I could only keep one breed of bantams, it would be these guys.

You might also want to visit my page on the closely related Sabelpoot bantam (I really don't understand the relationships among these small European booted, bearded and booted, and clean legged bantams).