How many eggs do your bantams lay a week?

[Suejordn]

We have five little batams
Silkie, frizzled cochin, D ‘Uccle, a cochin cross and a hamburg cross. We have them for two reasons. Pets for the kids and eggs for the family. We have a small space so bantams were our only choice really. We love them small! Just wondering how many eggs everyone here gets from their bantams a week?
Only two of ours are laying. Just started 3 weeks ago!
Frizzle cochin lays everyday faithful! Sizzle is every other day and sometimes she skips two days and sometimes she lays two days in a row but never at the same time of day oh and it takes her forever 1-2 hrs to get the task done!!! We are always watching out our window
Thanks for anyone who reads and replies! So interested in hearing how everyone else does in the egg department with bantams!

 

[Chicalina]

Maybe 5 or 6 a week each during the better months, and then it drops down for the winter a bit, and of course stops a bit when they are broody. Not too bad for little chickens!

 

[Suejordn]

Oh that awesome numbers! It’s my first time with chickens and learning their patterns. I had no idea they stopped in winter till I read this forum! I don’t really have a plan yet for when they go broody. I’m nervous. I’ve been checking craigslist for wire dog crates.
How many bantams do you have?

Maybe 5 or 6 a week each during the better months, and then it drops down for the winter a bit, and of course stops a bit when they are broody. Not too bad for little chickens!

 

[Chicalina]

They take little breaks, which is good for them and makes them live longer. I've got 12 atm. Polish, Silkie, Pekin, and Wyandotte and some mixes of these as I hatched some babies this year.

Don't fret too much about broodiness. Its not a big deal and easily sorted.

 

[Suejordn]

Oh thanks! That’s reassuring. Nice mix you have! I love the way polish look! They are spectacular!
I had a little mite scare last week. I only found about five or six (but the bugs I found were definitely bigger than a pin head and I only found a couple on the floor and none on my chickens) and I completely cleaned the house out with a solution and used poultry powder to cover everything. My question is how do you keep mites at bay? What preventative do you use? Sorry if I’m bugging you but You sound like you might have been doing this for a while.

They take little breaks, which is good for them and makes them live longer. I've got 12 atm. Polish, Silkie, Pekin, and Wyandotte and some mixes of these as I hatched some babies this year.

Don't fret too much about broodiness. Its not a big deal and easily sorted.

 

[Chicalina]

Firstly, are you sure they were mites? Lots of different insects may go in the coop and not all of them live on or harm the chickens. Post pics if you can and start a new thread with a mite title.

As a preventative, I generally use diatomaceous earth when I clean the coop and put some on the poop board and roosts. I use it sparingly because it is dusty and I don't want the chickens breathing it. Many here don't like DE for various reasons. I've never had any problem with it.

If I notice an infestation (very rarely have), then I use a permethrin based insecticide in the coop. It is basically just household flea spray. You can get some that you use on the chickens too, but I prefer Ivermectin which is a systemic spot-on and very easy to use.

 

[Chicalina]

Depending on the 'solution' and 'poultry powder' you used, you may have effectively treated what was there. It may not have been mites anyway, but there is no need to panic. Just treat them like you would a cat or dog with regular prevention and you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[Suejordn]

Thanks for all that! I’ve just read some pretty scary things about mites. How it’s inevitable to get infestations and how they could get in your house and terrorize your house etc. we love having chickens and each time we get an egg it’s magic! They do have scaley leg mites though, at least the feathered foot chicken have it so we’ve been treating them with Vaseline and spray cooking oil on their legs and feet. But wow, it’s hard to know if you covered everything inch with such big feathers!
Anyway I did post pictures and started a mite thread last week. Some said probably lice and other said they were too big for mites so not so sure still. But it’s been since last Saturday and I haven’t seen any on the coop floor. And yes I’m checking daily . Anyway. Thank you again for your responses. The dust I used had permethrin in it and the solution was water oil and dish soap. The next day there were little winged bug dead all of the outside of the coop. oh and my coop is small.

Depending on the 'solution' and 'poultry powder' you used, you may have effectively treated what was there. It may not have been mites anyway, but there is no need to panic. Just treat them like you would a cat or dog with regular prevention and you shouldn't have a problem.

Here a couple pictu

 

[Chicalina]

the feather feet are a bugger! It took me several months of oiling regularly before I got advice and bought ivermectin. My clean footed birds shifted the mites easily with coconut oil, but not the feather footed breeds. You can buy it for pigeons and I just doubled the dose. Its good and also gets rid of any other parasites including some types of worm. I recommend it for stubborn scaly leg mites.