Yvonne Munson has lost count of the times she’s been called a “crazy chicken lady,” but embraces the label proudly.

How crazy is she? Munson once drove 5½ hours from her farm in Smithfield to western North Carolina to meet someone willing to trade cockerels, the proper term among breeders for young roosters, in hopes of breeding birds with a smaller comb, the fleshy red growth on top of a chicken’s head.

Of course, the majority of her birds aren’t ordinary chickens. They’re Nankin bantams, a rare breed descended from hens English settlers brought across the Atlantic Ocean in colonial times.

It’s why, in addition to Munson’s farm, Nankins can be found at Colonial Williamsburg, where settlers once used them to incubate quail and pheasant eggs.

“A lot of quail and pheasants don’t go broody,” Munford said, referring to a hen’s instinctive desire to nest on eggs. The Nankins, however, “are very good sitters.”

According to The Livestock Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that protects endangered livestock and poultry breeds, the earliest known records indicate the Nankin was brought to England sometime prior to the 1500s, likely from the Chinese port of Nanking, now Nanjing, from which the breed derives its name. “Bantam,” Munson said, refers to smaller-size breeds.

Nankins, sometimes called the “yellow bantam,” have chestnut-colored feathers and slate gray legs.

“A true Nankin will actually have pink down the shaft of their legs as well,” Munson said.

Being a breeder means adhering to strict standards as to the color of a chicken’s beak, eyes and feathers and the height of its comb. Chickens that don’t meet the breed standard, she said, must be culled from the flock.

Culling “doesn’t mean kill them,” Munson said. 

She’ll typically sell a bird that doesn’t meet the breed standard to a backyard chicken enthusiast instead.

“I hate to cull them unless I absolutely have to,” Munson said.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, there were an estimated 373 Nankin chickens in the United States in 2018. The Livestock Conservancy had ranked the dwindling Nankin population as “critical” in 2021, referring to breeds with fewer than 200 annual registrations in the United States and an estimated global population of less than 2,000.

The Nankin population has improved in the three years since, and is now listed as “threatened” on The Livestock Conservancy’s priority list, which refers to breeds with fewer than 1,000 annual U.S. registrations and a global population less than 5,000.

A contributor to the problem, though not one Munson has experienced personally, is Nankin eggs tend to be more round than oval, which can deprive a developing chick of the oxygen it needs. The wider end of a chicken egg, Munson said, is where the air sac is located.

Munson, a third-generation farmer, moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia in 1998 after retiring as a Harris Teeter store manager. She purchased her first two mating pairs of Nankins six years ago while attending the Lebanon Valley Poultry Fancier Show in her home state. She also raises Sebrights, another bantam breed named for John Sebright, a British man who originated the breed from the Nankins in the 19th century.

“I went back to my roots,” said Munson, whose grandfather had raised Rhode Island Red chickens, a larger breed than the Nankins.

In addition to raising her own chickens, she’s also certified through the National Poultry Improvement Plan, established in the 1930s as a cooperative industry, state and federal program, to test for Pullorum Disease, which is caused by the bacteria Salmonella Pullorum, and for Avian Influenza. The certification entails maintaining strict biosecurity at her farm.

When entering her chicken coops, “I only wear certain shoes,” Munson said. “Something on your shoes could actually contaminate the birds.”

Her dual status as a certified tester and livestock chair of the Isle of Wight County Fair comes in handy. Both are unpaid positions.

“Any time you show a bird in a poultry show or 4-H, they must be tested for pullorum to make sure we’re not carrying,” Munson said. “Being a certified tester, I can test my birds, other people’s flocks, and of course, 4-H, and write up the paperwork and send it into the state vet.”

Taking the birds out in public means quarantining them upon their return at least 6 feet away from the rest of the flock. NPIP-certified breeders also can only purchase new birds from other NPIP-certified breeders, and still must quarantine newly purchased birds for 30 days.

Munson, as the fair’s livestock chair, coordinates the poultry and rabbit show. This year’s fair is set for Sept. 12-15.