d'anver lovers,discuss the breed and post some pics!

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Poor, pathetic chickens. Not looking so great at this point, but they are perky and eating. Just a little terrified about being picked up. Understandably so.

Susan
 
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Susan,
those were some awsome looking lavenders!
Hate the coon messed them up for you.
Several of mine are starting their summer molt, where were yours in the process?
If they just molted, no chance, it'll be the next molt 6 month or so from now before they will get right again.
IF they hadnt molted yet, they should be getting close so you would have some hope there. Takes about a month for the full process to be complete.
3 months would be a good time range for you. Hope it all works out.
 
They are about a year old, and I don't think they had started to molt yet. Hopefully they will shape up by fall. Right now they are so sad looking! He has a couple of other chickens to take to the fair if they need more time. Probably not a year that he will have any chickens place; but sometimes it is not about placing.
Susan
 
Aubrey, I can only magine how awful that must have been for you.

Angus is finally crowing at just over 14 weeks old. He is also bulking up now, finally. Your namesake is getting a tad fiesty now. He jumps at my fingers when I hold out my hands to him, tries to nip them, then he'll throw out his chest and drop those wings and charge. Today, I scooped him up and flipped him upside down with one hand on his back and one on his chest when he did it and the little sucker wasn't happy. He bit me, little dickens. Me and little Aubrey are going to have a showdown, I fear. Rufus is less jumpy, though he did get a nip in today for the first time. Usually, Rufus will jump up to socialize with me and Penny when we're sitting on the lawn chair and he will let me rub his chest some. Angus is just hard to catch.

Not sure how to deal with a fiesty tiny rooster. I don't allow human aggressive standard breed roosters to stay here because I find that the calm tempered boys usually thrown calm tempered sons with few exceptions, but not sure how I'll handle one that you would barely feel flog you. Have you ever had to cull one of your D'Anver boys for extreme aggression? Or do you just accept that they can be tempermental? These boys are just over 14 weeks and the hormones are coming into play now, so I'll have to watch them and see how they do once they're mating the girls.

My 3 yr old banty Cochin is now living in the coop with them, along with my two remaining original standard breed hens and a very mild mannered Buff Orp girl with her 9 week old son (who is up for rehoming). Rufus or Rusty, didn't see which, tried to mount her this morning and she cleaned his clock, LOL.
 
yep it was pretty bad Cynthia,
No I never cull on aggression, if I did, I would have but 1/4 of the d'anver males that I have now, LOL
That's just the d'anver in them. As they grow, you'll notice if more of a hen defense thing that anything, and I like that. I'd prefer to have a rooster that will try to defend it's girls as opposed to one who's gonna bail on them....there's no such thing as a aggressive d'anver hen, they are all little cuties, so they need the boys to do the dirty work for them.

Like you said though, pretty much they are just little ankle bitters, nothing much too one of them. Now a 8 pound rooster, we'd have to talk on that.

Oh and they are hard headed little buggers too, pretty much nothing you can do to deter them. Just pull the spurs off once a year and there's nothing too them, they'll pop right off with a little twist and wiggle, Kinda like pulling a tooth.
 
The thing is that with my standard breeds, even my big love-bug roosters are johnny-on-the-spot to protect the hens, but they never bow up at me when I have a screaming, struggling hen in my hands. They realize that I am not the enemy, that I will not hurt their girls. If big old 14 lb Suede got an attitude, he couldn't stay here, and trust me, with one hen in particular, who screeches like some dinosaur if I even touch her, he'd have shown human-aggression if he had it in him, but he is really smart, gets that his women are just drama queens, LOL. He's already been in a fight in defense of his harem so I have no doubts about his readiness to protect, even though he doesn't have a human-aggressive bone in his body that I've ever seen. (not sure what he'd do if a stranger broke in and tried to take one of the girls, though-that would be a test). Isaac, my big Delaware in my avatar, it's the same, though he's much more cautious with strangers.

So, as you can see, I'm used to calm, even-tempered roosters, but I've only had standards other than a young D'uccle I sold recently. I'll have to see if these little guys and I can reach an agreement somehow. They don't have to be cuddly, of course, just not attack when I walk into the pen. They haven't done that yet, just want to be a little nippy right now. I can't even catch Angus most of the time, but I had to the other day and he was fine with me. They sure do go off when I have to catch a bird in that pen, get all crazy and run around, cackling, alarming and crowing, which you said they would.

Then hens are adorable and I'm completely in love with them. Everything you've said about this breed is being proven daily here and I'm seeing it more as they mature, the fiesty boys and the cuddly girls-of course, I knew you wouldn't steer me wrong! I'm just going to have to adjust my thinking a bit to the breed from what I'm used to when dealing with the big guys.

When I said "extreme aggression" when I asked my question, what I meant was a rooster who was over the top compared to the normal D'Anver male, more so than even you are used to. Not sure that was really clear and I apologize--I didn't mean I thought what little Aubrey was doing was what I considered "extreme" for his breed. I can tell you that Both Aubrey and Angus are so gorgeous, they are just super eye candy!
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I think is a d'anver thing. My little boys are very mean with other breeds of bantams, and they are only 4 weeks old. I have some hatchery Seabrights, Blue and Silver Lace Cochins and Lavender D'Uccle, that are just one week younger than my d'anvers.
For the past two weeks I keep them outside during the day, on the grass, in a 8x8 tractor made specially for them (I still put them inside at night) and I have right next to them my hatchery group in a much smaller cage. I tried to put them together in the bigger run, but it was like a massacre. My d'anver boys were beating the little ones in groups.
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I had to pull them out right away. They are ok with their own kind, but they don't accept any outsiders. The girls on the other hand are the exactly the opposite. They are very sweet and blend in with other breeds, with no problem.
I noticed that the smaller the breed is the meaner is the rooster. I supposed they have to make up for their size.
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Luckily I only want to keep pullets, I don't want them for breeding purposes. I got my d’anvers only for the sweet temper and the good look. I was planning to keep only one pullet out of each color that I initially wanted (4 out of 20). But I got some extra colors and extra number to make out for the color and chicks I couldn’t get, so now I will keep 3 out of my initial color desired (mottled, splash, and dun quail) and if I'm lucky to have some pullets out of the other ones, then I will have two other colors (kakhy and quail). I think most of my of my other colors are boys. I will give them few more days, and then I will post some photos with the one I'm not yet sure, and hope to have some pullets there. I would like to have at least 5 pullets all together that I can keep out of my group of 23 d’anvers.
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haha
yep that's just a d'anver being a d'anver
as long as they dont fly up and come at your head, you are doing good...HAHA

Like Arianna said, I think they have a little person syndrome and feel they have to make up for thier size in attitude.
One thing I have noticed with them, is, even as grumpy as they can be, towards each other, they are puppy dogs. Even male to male believe it or not.
If they are raised toegther, they will never bow up at each other. With all the breeding work I do, I am constantly swithcing males from pen to pen. even then, when you drop a new male in a pen with an established male, they'll spare for a few minutes, then that's it, they are buddies from then on. Problem then for us, when you go into the pen, you have one on each ankle, they are like a pack of wolves working together to take you down.
The people aggression I have noticed is a coward like attack, meaning if you are looking at them, they wont get ya...they wait til you turn to walk out, then you'll feel that tap tap and the back of you leg with a little d'anver male attached to it...kinda funny to me, they think they are something else
I sure am glad they are a true bantam though, would hate to see a 14 pound one!

Arianna,
yep post some pics once they get a little size to them, will do my best to get them sexed for you
 

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