Ayam Cemani: The Lamborghini of Chickens

Extremely rare Ayam Cemani chickens are completely black from head to toe comb to talon. Costs as much as $2,500, this rare chicken is the Lamborghini of the poultry world, only sold in pairs for $5,000 the Ayam Cemani is yet to be imported into Australia. As quite possibly the rarest chicken in the world a $100 additional fee holds your place in the long line up to buy a pair of these exquisite chickens.

Everything about it is black: plumage, beak, tongue, legs, toe nails, even its meat, bones, and organs! The only thing that is not black is it’s blood – though it comes in a very dark shade.

The word ‘Ayam’ means ‘chicken’ in Indonesian, and ‘Cemani’ translates as ‘completely black’ in Javanese. These birds, native to Indonesia, get their black coloring from a generic trait known as ‘fibromelanosis’, that promotes the proliferation of black pigment cells. The gene that causes fibromelanosis is a mutation that existed in Asia more than 800 years ago.