American serama thread!

[Nimueh Alene]

Guess who crowed at 3 weeks old.. No sign of color in the comb. He was throwing up hackles with another known cockerel this morning too.
Introducing "Gambit "

 

[MillersFarm]

Hi~ Thought I'd just pop in, I'm pretty new to Seramas and bought around 8 last year just for fun, Now i'm starting to get into breeding them. They're all pet quality and i'm mainly focusing on color right now but i'd love to breed them to have better stances as well. I've only got smooth so far but i'm planning on buying some frizzle and silkie serama hatching eggs, Does anyone know a good breeder to go to? Anyways, I thought i'd show off my seramas just a little bit

Here's my main breeding roo Happy~

And here are a few of his girls..

Just picked these two up, Both are suppose to be pullets but i'm not so sure about the blue-ish brown one..

I've also got some chicks hatching out right now, So far just one has hatched under my black serama, the rest of her eggs(8) have pipped and are starting to zip, and i've got a few more broody seramas with eggs that are due to hatch as well (21 total). I've also got some older serama chicks in my brooding pens as well~ Here are a few extra pics of my seramas~

 

[Faraday40]

New to seramas, but I thought I'd hop on to introduce my little ones.
We hatched them March 24th, 2018 from shipped eggs.

This is Teddy, our daughter's favorite. He's basically her pocket pet. His crow still sounds like a hiccup compared to my orps. (been crowing for at least a month & mating for a few weeks now.) Do serama crows always sound like that or will he get more volume?
(We have mostly English orpingtons)

and this is Noodle - aka the brat. She's a few hours older, slightly bigger, and also very spoiled. Her face is starting to look more red. Do you think she's getting close to laying? (about 16 weeks)

Baby pics:

 

[CutieChicken]

Beautiful birds!

I’ve been thinking about getting seramas, but all I can find nearby (in North Texas) are breeding pairs. I do have a broody bantam cochin and a broody silkie that could hatch eggs, but I’ve heard not so good things about using shipped eggs. So is the best way to build up a little flock to start with a breeding pair? Or could a bantam broody hatch the tiny eggs without squishing the babies? I’m interested mostly in small size, good type, and friendly temperament. Thanks for the help!

 

[WVduckchick]

One of my girls had a new one hatched this morning. I think she was on 6 eggs

 

[Faraday40]

Beautiful birds!

I’ve been thinking about getting seramas, but all I can find nearby (in North Texas) are breeding pairs. I do have a broody bantam cochin and a broody silkie that could hatch eggs, but I’ve heard not so good things about using shipped eggs. So is the best way to build up a little flock to start with a breeding pair? Or could a bantam broody hatch the tiny eggs without squishing the babies? I’m interested mostly in small size, good type, and friendly temperament. Thanks for the help!

Shipped eggs have a much lower hatch rate than eggs you can purchase locally. It's definitely worth a drive to pick them up, because you may only get 2-3 chicks or even 0 from a doz shipped eggs. Seramas are little harder to hatch than reg LF breeds. (Require more humidity & can get themselves into trouble after hatch due to their tiny size.) I'm in no way an expert and my goal was not to start a tiny flock but to simply hatch a few sweet, adorable birds for my DD.

That being said, you can try to ask someone selling a breeding pair if they could sell you hatching eggs instead. Due to biosecurity, I personally prefer to only add to my flock via hatching. That way the chicks have a 3 week incubation + 3-4 more weeks in the brooder as a quarantine period. I'm sure a good bantam broody could hatch seramas eggs OK.

Some people sell breeding pairs because they don't want to get stuck with all male chicks. However I don't know if that's true with seramas. Around here, it's the male seramas that cost more. People keep them as spoiled house chickens.

Speaking of spoiled chickens...... here are some more pics of Teddy. (DD's trying to get a good pic to enter in photography.)

 

[WVduckchick]

Teddy is adorable!

I’m getting quite a few eggs these days, if anyone wants to try shipped ones.

 

[CutieChicken]

Speaking of spoiled chickens...... here are some more pics of Teddy.

I love Teddy So regal

I’m getting quite a few eggs these days, if anyone wants to try shipped ones.

I worry about our temperatures with shipped eggs. We are over 100 degrees this entire week and probably next week too. Obviously I’d have eggs held at the post office, but the transit could get pretty hot. Do you think that would adversely affect the eggs?

 

[WVduckchick]

I love Teddy So regal



I worry about our temperatures with shipped eggs. We are over 100 degrees this entire week and probably next week too. Obviously I’d have eggs held at the post office, but the transit could get pretty hot. Do you think that would adversely affect the eggs?

It’s been pretty hot here too, and we never know how the post office is going to handle our packages, or where they will get stored, etc. I shipped eggs to NY state last month (pretty hot there too, surprisingly) and she had a very good hatch. But it’s always a gamble. Obviously local eggs are a better choice if you can find them, but sometimes shipping is worth the gamble. Just depends on your goals and expectations.

 

[Faraday40]

I love Teddy So regal



I worry about our temperatures with shipped eggs. We are over 100 degrees this entire week and probably next week too. Obviously I’d have eggs held at the post office, but the transit could get pretty hot. Do you think that would adversely affect the eggs?

Thank you. Teddy's our special little guy.

I know that @WVduckchick packs her eggs very well. Best packaged eggs I ever saw! Sadly for me, even with the "hold for pick up" request & our ph# clearly marked , our post office never holds the eggs. Also a few breeders have told me that any eggs passing through Chicago tend to get scrambled. If everything goes well, I may get 50%, but several times I have also gotten 0% hatch. Perhaps it's just our region. It's a gamble, but sometimes the only way to obtain the breed or quality you want is via shipped eggs. I think the heat could have an adverse effect on the eggs. A student stored some eggs outside at 90'F for 5 days before incubation. She noticed that they actually began developing a little before being set. Strange! I hope to test this or see if my DD wants to design an experiment using this idea.