d'Anvers - What are these wonderful creatures?

[ThePolishPrincess]

Quote:
Haha, I know what you mean. I need more chickens like I need a hole in my head, but I can only get chicks once a year, due to the very small space in the coop. Just not big enough to handle so many birds. We're ordering the eight chicks soon, and I was told that someone ordered 3 pullets and only one was a girl. It makes me nervious, but that's the only option we have. 3 Polish girls, 1 Spitz girl, and some other layers. They need to be girls. Girl donuts, we need girl donuts.

Oh, and I know what you mean about Silkie roos. Ours is as mean as a bear. He's picked a fight with me on several occasions.

How was a quality of the birds?

 

[tfpets]

She's a pretty girl, I think we saw her at the show too! She runs along the size of the Mille Fleur D'Uccle's or the Bantam Ameraucana's, if she needs friends...the dispositions sound similar...the little OEGB's are personable to me, almost like little parrots if you work with them, but they are smaller than the D'Anver's that we saw....Lucky little girl, I'm glad you got her!
Tina/tfpets

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Hi Tina, i am so happy to have her. She makes the funniest little sounds. We have a bantam OEGB in with our silkies. Her best friend is a bantam cochin, that sometimes picks on her. i wonder if those two can be friends. i would also really like some bantam EE's.

ThePolishPrincess, i found the quality of mypetchicken birds to be fine. Maybe not top of the top or show quality, but decent. My partridge silkie Lulu the RooRoo was gorgeous. i should have known i had a dude when he started towering above all the other silkies. Since they had sent an extra chick, that was the trade off. i've had good luck finding homes for unwanted roosters on craigslist, though.

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

Why did they send you an extra? That always bothers me. Nothing is ever 'free'. Those roos are alot of work.


Oh, and don't let your busband go for the pig. Ours is so pig-headed and is tons of work. They also get bored easily. Not fun trying to entertain a 125 lb pig, ya know?

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Yes, roos can be a lot of work. i once drove 4 hours to rehome one. i try to be careful to place them in good homes and it is a challenge.

They probably throw in an extra or two just because their sexing is not 100% accurate.

Hey, thanks for the info on pig care. i'm not crazy about the idea of a large animal (who makes large turds) staying in our house. i already clean up after four cats, a bunny, two silkie kids who live in one of our bathrooms, and then now our little d'anver. Not to mention the three coops outside and our outside bunny. So, how do you entertain a pig?

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

Oh no! Not in the house! You really, REALLY don't want that. Take it from me.

We got our pig thinking that she'd be a fun animal, like another dog. The whole family thought it wasn't a bad idea and Dad was looking farward to it. We drove into the 'burbs of NY to a pig foster care center that took place inside a women's house. She had 20 pigs that lived in dog crates and most lived outdoors. We adopted our pink pot-bellied pig when she was about 6 months old and named her Eleanor Rigby (Pigby!), if that's the correct spelling. (After The Beatles song.) She was getting picked on by the others there and we just had to take her. We brought her home and housed her in a dog crate indoors. The owner said she wanted her to be an indoors pig and we said we didn't know if that could be done. We promised at least until her first winter was over. So that summer, she was our second dog. At first, she wasn't a bad-tempered animal. In fact, she was adorable for a while. Soon after, she seemed to over-stay her welcome and peed in the house, in the same spot every time (like a cat) and we had to try and cover it up with something. She bullied the dog into giving up her food, even though pigs are supposed to be herbivors. She became unfriendly and disliked people. When bad weather came, she refused to go down the stairs outside and do her business, but did it on the porch. She broke a marbel garbage bin because I accidently left my chewing gum in there. (oops!) We would occasionally find her upstairs and try to carry her down. (Not fun with a sqwawking, screaming animal.) She would wake us up on weekdays and weekends alike to be let ouside and then trample in, scratching the floor. Also, when we let her out she would travel great distances to the neighbor's yard and eat fallen apples off of their tree, THEN go and eat all of their feral's cat food. We'd have to run and fetch her before the neighbors found out. Once my mother was substitue-teaching for the neighbor's daughter's class. The girl asked my mother, "You have the pig, right?" My mother admitted this was true and the girl responded, "Oh. She ate my pumpkin and I had to watch."

It was funny. Okay. Not so much.

Alright, after all of this banter, you can guess what came next. After she made our winter a living hell, she had to go. Daddy, who wanted her so badly, made her an encosure and she took to it well. We gave her a 'pigloo' (sleeping bin for dogs, but she used it) to sleep in and was given her meals twice a day. Life was more peaceful until she'd start knocking over her water bucket and we'd have to fill it up over and over again. Which brings me back to my point: pigs and smart animals and they get bored easily. She thought that by knocking the water over, she'd get our attention. Not so, since I refuse to fill it up more than once a day. No, I haven't figured out a way to keep her entertained yet. We've heard that those dog toys you can hide food in sound good, but we think she'll just eat the whole toy. That's likely. Oh, and when the ducks went through their 'we don't want to lay with the smelly chickens, we want to lay in the pigloo' phase, the pig got the eggs.

Now she spends her days knocking over water buckets, causing drama (cardiac arrest), and screaming for the next meal.

Pigs, especially indoor ones, are over-rated and more trouble than they're worth. Take it from me.

 

[moduckman]

I show d'Anvers. I have said time and time again they are wonderful birds who just sing while they stroll about. Yours looks to be a pullet (under a year), probably 10 or 11 months old. My little hens are not the best layers and will not start until the weather warms. I currently have six quail hens and one black hen as well as four roos. Two are aggressive, but are just like grasshoppers who bounce off my legs. In the past I have had some that feared nothing. When one aggressive, brave rooster happened into the standard Black Langshan pen, it was all over but the crying as the poor little d'Anver looked more like a hatband.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Yikes!

Okay, definitely do NOT want a pig!

But it sounds like i do want more d'anvers!

What wonderful little sweeties they are!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

airheart43, I am sorry I didn't reply back sooner...been wrapped up in my own chickens

Yes, my d'Anver roo is friendly, but we have had both Robert and Fran as day old chicks and we raised them as pets.

Robert is soooo pretty strutting around the yard. When he dances to the girls it is soooo comical! He thinks he should be with the big girls and they give him this side glance like, "You don't have it in you" and walk away

He is super fast, too! He is one of the hardest chickens out there to catch, but he's never bit or flogged at any of us. Can't say he hasn't flogged the cat, but that was her fault for moseying in too close to the flock.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Aww, he sounds cute! i wouldn't mind a roo. We are allowed to have them here, and all our neighbors have said they wouldn't mind us having one. But the last roo i hatched, a beautiful silkie named Chester, was just too loud for us. He was driving my dh crazy. Plus, my hens voted him off the Island. So he went to live with Ryan (who lives not too far away - but far enough away that we couldn't hear the crowing).

But i think my dh could handle hearing a "squeak-a-doodle-doo". Those little bantam crows are so adorable!