Bantam Breeds

[obsidianembrace]

I'm looking into some bantam duck breeds. I already own call ducks and love them, but I want to look in to some others. We own a pair of call ducks and we want to have 5, maybe 6 ducks total. So anything we get has to fit in those parameters. We're wanting to stick to 1 drake but we could maybe do 2. We're only planning on breeding when we need new ducks, so not that often. We're maybe wanting eggs but we don't know how good bantam eggs are. What small-er ducks lay good eggs?

First, do bantam breeds get along well together (particularly with call ducks?)

What are good bantam breeds?

Favorite breeds? Personalities?

Any opinions or answers to questions I haven't thought of?

-obs

 

[TK Poultry]

there are silky ducks, black east indies, mini appleyards

just go to holderread's website they have a bunch of bantam ducks

 

[CityChicker]

Hey Obs!

I got your PM as well, but thought I would post here. We do sell bantam ducklings, but don't sex them nor do we typically sell excess females unless we have tons of extra adult hens (very rare occurrence). When we have ducklings (typically in the bantams just during the Spring), we do not sell less than 10. You might also try Holderread's or Ideal. Holderread's sell several bantam breeds, but again, their minimum is 10 and they don't sell sexed ducklings. Ideal is one of the few that has some bantam breeds they sell as sexed day-olds, but I think they are done for the year as well. If you want ducklings or eggs in the bantam breeds, Spring is the better time to get them. We are going into the time of year when most breeders just sell adult birds, especially in the bantams (closer to Fall though when it is cooler).

As far as breeds, there are a number of types of bantam ducks. The Holderread's have some great pictures on their site of some of the breeds. There are Mini Appleyards/Silver Bantams, Australian Spotteds (three colors), Black and Blue East Indies, Silkies, Mallards (several colors, but Grey and Snowy are the most common), and Mini Overbergs. There are a few others, but they are not common or non-existent in the US. I have bred most of the bantam breeds (all except Silkies). I like them all for various reasons. Most of them tend to be calm and friendly birds. I would do some reading online and go with whichever breed appeals to you. If it were me, I wouldn't necessarily breed them with Calls, but you can certainly house them together. We frequently keep ours together before and after the breeding season with very few problems.

As far as egg laying goes, none of them are known for being particularly good layers compared to other duck breeds like Runners, WH, etc... Most of our bantam hens lay around 75-125 eggs per year. Our best layers far and away are our Mallards. They also tend to lay the largest eggs of our bantam breeds. You can eat the eggs of any of the bantam breeds as well. Now, whether or not you would want to do that is another question all together. You would have to keep a decent number of them to get any significant amount of eggs for eating and most people would probably consider bantam duck breeds too valuable to eat the eggs of. Mallards though are certainly an option for that and a lot of domestic Mallards will lay year round.

Good luck to you. I hope this helps!

 

[obsidianembrace]

I looked at ideal and the only bantam they have are east indie and snowy mallard (are the ones they have smaller? Are snows always small?) do they have silver bantams or something else that I didn't see? Any other breeders?

That's great that they'll sex them. That's what we need

Thanks for replying.

 

[CityChicker]

Okay, I just checked their website. It looks like they have regular Mallards, Crested Mallards, Snowy Mallards, and Black East Indies. All but the regular Mallards they say are sold out for the year (typical as most of the bantam breeds are fairly seasonal layers). As far as size, the Calls are definitely smaller than the other bantam ducks by usually a pound or more. It just all depends though on the individual birds. I have some Calls that are less than half the size of some of my bantam ducks, but I also have some larger pet quality Calls that are about the same size of some of my smallest bantam ducks. It just all depends on the quality and the individual birds. I am pretty sure that someone here had some Black East Indies from Ideal, but I can't remember who.

 

[obsidianembrace]

So crested mallards are a bantam breed? But how big are they? I love the crested ones. Practical question about them though. If I get a female with a crest would the male tear out those feathers when he mates with her?

And what's the order minimum at ideal?

It would be best if anyone knew of any breeders near me in utah. I'd drive about 5-6 hours for a pair of bantams, ideally call ducks. (I really like the crested ones though

)

Sidenote, I want to talk my mom in to some runners. They're good egg-layers, right? Would they get along and fit in with a bunch of calls?

thanks everyone

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
They are great egg-layers; one of the best. They'll get along with Calls if they were raised together. I have a group of 3 Calls and 2 Runners growing out together right now, and they're best pals.

But, if you have adult Calls that have never seen a Runner before and you try to introduce a few, I've found that the Calls will swarm over the Runners like locusts and beat the crap out of them!

 

[obsidianembrace]

Yeah, I could see my ducks doing that hahaha.

Sounds like I'll have to get a whole new start when I move out. That'll be nice though.

So we're sticking with calls/bantams. Goodie.

Any other ideas?