A friend of mine who recently tried to hatch some eggs and got a less than stellar performance (6 of the 48 eggs hatched) opted to receive a shipment of 34 (or 36 they won’t stand still long enough to count) Feather Footed bantam newborn chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Knowing that I had been interested in the eggs if they hatched, my friend invited me over to pick out a few of the babies for our flock.
Bantams are a pain in the neck. They are smaller than the other birds, traditionally more skittish, and their small eggs are laid whenever they feel like laying an egg. If you want a good supply for breakfasts, you’d better stay away from bantams.
BUT (and that’s a large “but” on purpose) bantams are the standouts of any flock. Whenever people come over to look at our flock, it’s always the little ones that steal the show:
“That’s Isobelle, our Sebright.”
“That’s Jody and Joan, our Seramas.”
“That’s Ms. Frizzle, our frizzle Serama.”
Oh sure the larger chickens get some attention:
“That’s Zelda, our retired alpha.”
But for the most part, if you want lookers, you need to have a bantam or two in your flock. Just take a peek at these little beauties:
There is no trouble with Tribbles.
Our newest chicks came unmarked. I’m not %100 sure what they are but I *think* we’ve gotten ourselves:
- 2 Porcelain bantams
- 2 Mille Fleur (although one might be a Buff brahma bantam)
- 2 Blue Silkie Bantams
Also, as the chicks are newborns, I tried my feather sexing skills on them and … drum-roll please… my prediction is that I have 4 females and 2 males (which is good because, as you all know, roosters and our neighborhood do not exactly get along.)
So now we have a nursery set up in our house for our two maran chicks and now we have a heated Intensive Chick Unit (ICU) for our newest arrivals to the flock. The kids are going crazy having babies in the house again and the sweet sound of peeps welcomed and bid us “good day” when we all came downstairs this morning.
Never a dull moment in this flock of ours – same as always.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
Also, join me on Facebook to find out more about the flock (children and chickens) and see some pretty funny chicken jokes, photos of tiny houses, and even a recipe or two.
