A jubilee orpington became a serama or 9

[dreamwallaby]

Chicken math. Need I say more? Probably not but I will anyways

5 years ago I bought my first chickens, 4 lovely Easter eggers and somehow managed to stop there and avoid the chicken math disease that was plaguing so many others. Then I lost 2 of my hens in the past 6 months. One to an impacted crop (the vet could not save her and we humanely euthanized her) and the other to a predator when she somehow manged to be shut out of the coop one night (I'll never forgive myself and still don't understand how it happened). So I decided to add 2 pullets to the flock and found a farm close by with a few EEs. So I packed up the kids and went to pick up the EEs only to get there and find they didn't actually have any EEs anymore. Well I couldn't drive home empty handed, I had 3 young boys with me who were set on getting their new chickens after all. So we looked through the group; some white chickens, BOs, barred rocks, RIR, Welsummer and a different looking black and white chicken that turned out to be a silver laced wyandotte. We left with a RIR and the SLW knowing absolutely nothing about the breeds. As soon as the new girls were settled in I hopped online to research the breeds and came across the Jubillee Orpington

well as you can guess I started looking up breeders and decided we really did have room for 5 and I simply had to have this chicken. I searched for weeks and found a couple options. A farm almost 2 hrs away had chicks but they sold only straight run and I risked getting a rooster. Quite a risk for a $50 chick and sad to think about only getting 1 chick. Then they were offering young hens that had been in with roosters for $100. Well if I was going to do that I might as well incubate the eggs, right? right. Well I have a crazy dog so I didn't really want chicks in the house so I decided the best thing to do was to get a broody hen and let her raise the JO's chicks, then I could sell the chicks to offset the cost of this venture, maybe keep one chick.... so that's 6 hens and some chicks and keep one chick so eventually 7...I'll make it work.
Time to find the broody. Everything I read says to go with a silkie. So I start looking for a silkie breeder. Find one and tell her I need a hen that will definitely go broody. Well this breeder also has seramas and she tells me how fantastic they are and they pretty much go broody on demand. So I look up the serama and fall in love, simply beautiful, all those colors and small for the kids and sweet!!!

BUT, they're small so I don't want them in with my big hens so I need a new coop.... I buy the second coop and of course I can't just get 1 serama mama for the new coop so I go to buy 2. When I get there, I can't decide what hens I like best, then she offers to sell me a frizzle serama!!!!! and so I came home with 3.

These 3 had been in with a rooster so within an hour of settling in the one lays an egg and of course it "could" be fertile. Enter CHICK FEVER. The first week they are laying eggs but they aren't going broody and I start to panic because I'm a new broody chicken crazy lady and don't realize they'll sit when they are done laying all of them. Then we had 2 days of ridiculous heat and the eggs became too hot. I threw out the first week of eggs and started to think I would never see tiny serama chicks, which I now had my heart set on.

The girls continue to lay but I'm not sure they are going to be fertile since it's been over a week past Mr Rooster rendezvous. The girls still aren't broody either so I order an incubator. After I order it, they go broody, sitting on 13 eggs between 2 of the hens. Well now I have an incubator coming and I'm kind of hooked on the idea of hatching some eggs and I don't think the serama mamas eggs are going to be fertile anymore but I'm letting them try. You know what I need..... shipped eggs. (I'll have to deal with the crazy dog) So I order shipped fertile serama eggs (I know, what happened to the jubilee oprington??) 9 eggs arrive in a crushed box a full day later than they were suppose to. I give it a go anyways. 7 of the 9 are fertile. Just so happens the Serama Mama's eggs start pipping the same day as lockdown for the incubator eggs.I candle the Serama Mama eggs, just the 2 are good, replace all the duds with the shipped eggs and all is well. Unfortunately 3 of the shipped eggs did not hatch for whatever reason. After they had 6 chicks, the mamas came off the nests to chase chicks and feed them and stopped sitting on the last 3. I brought them back to the incubator but they were cold to the touch. I left them another 24 hrs and then opened them but the chicks were dead, fully developed.
I don't think I'll be adding the JO to the flock as the serama's have won me over for the moment to keep me color happy. Also, since the serama eggs are so small I still needed egg layers, and managed to add 2, 4 month old EE pullets...
Currently 4 EE, 1 RIR, 1 SLW, 3 Serama Mamas and 6 serama chicks of which I'll keep 1 or 2... Chicken Math, they need to make a vaccine


They have 2 nest boxes but as soon as the chicks hatched they insisted on keeping them together in one

 

[b.hromada]

Wow, are they ever cute!!

Love your story and the pics are fabulous too! Your little boy is so proud of his " baby "! Thanks for sharing. Keep enjoying your birds, you're not crazy either!!

 

[drumstick diva]

Me too, love your story, makes sense to me. Sounds like what I would do. The mamas and babies are gorgeous.

My friend has two silkied serama hens. I mistakenly thought they would have silkie type feathers and nagged her into getting them. They do not look like silkie feathers. Anyway they always think they are broody and kick her dog out of his bed. They are big birds in a tiny package. My friend was not that happy with them initially, so she got more of her favorite silkies. The seramas are 4-5 years old, a few silkies have come and gone during that period. While the fragile looking seramas are hardier than any of them.

The seramas watch TV with my friend every night. When company comes they run and hide behind the sofa. Every now and then they peak out to see if the intruders have left yet. They are hysterical to watch. When she leaves the house, the dog and seramas lay by the door till she returns.

I think after a rooster "visit" a hen can continue to lay fertile eggs for up to 3 weeks. My friend doesn't have a rooster and actually her broody hens just sit on air, and leave their nest whenever they get hungry or bored but, they THINK they are being broody.