Rosecomb

I got 2 Black Rosecombs this March from a local breeder, and I couldn't be more in love! We have abandoned referring to them as "Rosecombs," instead pinning both pullets with a name that's much more fitting: "big, important people." Shadow and Uni are just so full of zest and sass, you can truly say that they make up in personality what they lack in size. I even caught our people chasing a groundhog into the barn not too long ago! Both weigh around 15.2 oz. at the moment, though they might have a little more growing to do since they're only 16 weeks old. I would DEFINITELY recommend that anyone looking for an entertaining, charming little friend get 2 or 10 of these spectacular midgets.





~Alex

I got a batch of 8 banty eggs, barnyard mix, and hatched out 6 of this breed. The 1 boy has red ears so perhaps he's mixed breed, but he has the size, comb, and classic lines of the photos with red point feathers around his collar and saddle, some feathers on his legs, and holds his wings like others of this breed -- given that the 5 girls are dead ringers for the photos of the black birds of this breed, I think he's at least half Rosecomb. The girls, just starting to lay, have rose combs, beautiful all-black feathers that shimmer iridescent in the sun, light grey to white ears, one has partly feathered legs, and their eggs are rather small and so far the eggs are all white.

So I have some mixed breed, but they have the personalities and traits described as rosecomb. Now that I think of it, the pullet with the feathered legs is most curious/aggressive(?) of them -- she'll dash at my cat, or squirrels, much to their dismay. But I think she just wants to play chest-bump with them. They free-range very well so far, they're watchful, fast as lightning both in the ground and in the air, and quite capable of flight. I was trying to figure out if they're quickens (they're so small, they might as well be part quail, and we watched one take off vertically about 8' in the air today when she was startled!). I don't think they're particularly loud or talkative at all. Maybe I'm used to talkative birds.

Any behavioral oddness might be because mine were hatched and raised by a mixed-breed rhode island red bantam who taught them everything she knows -- she kept them under-wing for 9 weeks. Maybe because they were so small. I was going to say "curious" as a trait, but I think that's just the feather-legged pullet so it may be her mixed breed heritage. But the pullets all want to fight to be on top of the older RIR bantams in the pecking order. The boy is not at all afraid to herd or mount the older ladies even though he's around the same size they are.

One or two started laying at 18 weeks. Eggs, like the birds, are quite small, about half the size of my other banty eggs....hopefully the birds and eggs will get larger.

My hen is a very good broody and even tends some of my Silkie's eggs. She is very nice, friendly and has Black plumage colour so she is pretty to look at. She is not purebreed and has a bit of Orloff in her. (10.8 % Orloff) I was expecting for a Walnut comb but she came out single combed because I didn't want her to have a dangerous gene found in rose combed chickens. Her name is Marsha and she has very very small white earlobes.