My mother's bantam chickens, and questions about Sebrights

[NatJ]

Mystery hens #2, #3, #4: I think Easter Eggers. If they lay blue or green eggs, you will know for sure.

Mystery hens #1 and #5: I'm not sure as sure about them, but they might also be Easter Eggers.

Old English Game: might be. I'm not good at recognizing that breed, and they come in SO many colors. Definitely a male, and if he's mating with hens, then he's old enough to be a father.

Sebright roosters: yes, that's what they are. And yes, they are hen-feathered.

Sebright hen: she's definitely got the wrong kind of comb, but I cannot think of any other breed she could be. Rose comb chickens do occasionally have single comb chicks. Don't enter her in any poultry shows, but otherwise it's not a big deal. If she mates with a rose comb rooster, either half or all of her chicks will have rose combs. But they will carry the gene for single combs, so they might produce chicks with single combs. If anyone wants to breed chickens that look like Sebrights but have single combs, this would be a good starting point!

How to tell if a rooster is hen-feathered:
Look at your Old English Game. He's got feathers that droop just in front of his tail. They have pointy ends--that is rooster feathering.
Now look for the same feathers on the Sebrights. Those feathers have rounded ends--that is hen feathering.
Now look at the same place on a hen. Her feathers have rounded ends too-- that's why it is called "hen" feathering.

I don't know about Sebrights specifically, but roosters of any rose comb breed tend to be a bit less fertile than single comb roosters. It matters when you have hundreds of hens and a few roosters. If makes no noticeable difference when you have just one male and only one female. The exception is the roosters that have rose combs but also carry the gene for single combs: they are just as fertile as single comb roosters.

About broodiness: bantams in general are prone to going broody. Some individuals will, and some will not. It can happen at any time of the year, but is most likely to happen in the springtime. So keep your eyes open next spring!

 

[birdlover2]

Can you take more pictures of them standing without a person? It would be helpful to see a profile shot, one from the top, and one from the front.

Well, I could try, but seeing as they are bantams we never let them roam around cause they could and will run or fly away and if they free-range they're sure to get eaten. Also, they'll run away from us if we're standing right next to them in the open. I tried to get some pics of them through the mesh that makes up their peck and play, but they didn't come out good. I can get some pics through the chicken wire, but even if I climb up into the coop they'll run away from me so I can't get any top pics. I could get some from the front, maybe, and I do have a pic of #1 looking either quite broody or having a dust bath. Number 5 is the whitish one way in the back and #3 is the one scratching their eye. I think the one that's on the side and cut off is #2.

Here's a close-up pic of #4, it looks like numbers 2 and 3 are in the backgroud:

 

[birdlover2]

Mystery hens #2, #3, #4: I think Easter Eggers. If they lay blue or green eggs, you will know for sure.

Mystery hens #1 and #5: I'm not sure as sure about them, but they might also be Easter Eggers.

Old English Game: might be. I'm not good at recognizing that breed, and they come in SO many colors. Definitely a male, and if he's mating with hens, then he's old enough to be a father.

Sebright roosters: yes, that's what they are. And yes, they are hen-feathered.

Sebright hen: she's definitely got the wrong kind of comb, but I cannot think of any other breed she could be. Rose comb chickens do occasionally have single comb chicks. Don't enter her in any poultry shows, but otherwise it's not a big deal. If she mates with a rose comb rooster, either half or all of her chicks will have rose combs. But they will carry the gene for single combs, so they might produce chicks with single combs. If anyone wants to breed chickens that look like Sebrights but have single combs, this would be a good starting point!

How to tell if a rooster is hen-feathered:
Look at your Old English Game. He's got feathers that droop just in front of his tail. They have pointy ends--that is rooster feathering.
Now look for the same feathers on the Sebrights. Those feathers have rounded ends--that is hen feathering.
Now look at the same place on a hen. Her feathers have rounded ends too-- that's why it is called "hen" feathering.

I don't know about Sebrights specifically, but roosters of any rose comb breed tend to be a bit less fertile than single comb roosters. It matters when you have hundreds of hens and a few roosters. If makes no noticeable difference when you have just one male and only one female. The exception is the roosters that have rose combs but also carry the gene for single combs: they are just as fertile as single comb roosters.

About broodiness: bantams in general are prone to going broody. Some individuals will, and some will not. It can happen at any time of the year, but is most likely to happen in the springtime. So keep your eyes open next spring!

Forgive me for my picky questions, but I don't know a whole lot about EEs. We thought 2 and 3 might be Easter Eggers of some kind, but as far as you know are there any specific kinds of EEs or EE Bantams? How can you tell #4 is part EE? They do look similair to #2, but have no puffy cheeks, which I thought was something EEs have to have, do you think she's mixed with something else? Yeah, we have no idea about #1 and #5 either, we think they must be some sort of bantam specific breed, because I've never seen anything like them in regular chickens, but there were plenty like them where we got our bantams from. But who knows, they may be just an uncommon chicken breed or mix. About the Old English Game Bantam, yeah, I'd never heard of them before either, and when I looked them up some were white and black like him and others were red in coloring. Thanks for your confirmation on the Sebrights, and I never knew that Rose combs were bad for fertility! Yikes, I wish our one single comb Sebright male hadn't got out of the coop and got eaten...oh well, hopefully these guys will be fertile enough to reproduce and they'll pass on the rose combs to keep the breeds standard too. Yeah, that does sound like a cool idea, maybe if the Sebrights lose the rose comb they'll be a little easier to breed and they won't go extinct. Thanks for your info on Hen feathering, I was really hoping they'd be non-hen-feathered too, hopefully these guys can reproduce, or our little guy will have to be the father of all the chicks! I guess he's happy, lol At least since these guys seem to meet the standards we could show them if we wanted to. Yeah, it seems we'll probably have to wait until next spring for these guys to start laying. We're hoping the EEs might lay some this summer, but I guess if they all start laying at the same time it'll make things easier, (especially when getting a surrogate mother for the generally non-broody Sebright hen, unless ours happens to be an exceptional Sebright mother). Wow, didn't know bantams were generally more broody! Do you know if Easter Egger Bantams lay the same amount of eggs as regular EEs? These guys will probably have to be the mothers of our flock!

 

[NatJ]

Forgive me for my picky questions, but I don't know a whole lot about EEs. We thought 2 and 3 might be Easter Eggers of some kind, but as far as you know are there any specific kinds of EEs or EE Bantams? How can you tell #4 is part EE? They do look similair to #2, but have no puffy cheeks, which I thought was something EEs have to have, do you think she's mixed with something else?

Ameraucanas have pea combs, puffy cheeks, lay blue or green eggs, and come in certain specific colors.

Easter Eggers lay blue or green eggs, sometimes look vaguely like Ameraucanas, but can come in any combination of colors and comb types. They are what happens when hatcheries take Ameraucanas and select for better egg production, but do not care about color or puff cheeks or other details of appearance.

Easter Eggers often do have pea combs, because of the Ameraucana heritage. Very few other bantams have pea combs. So I think the ones with pea combs are Easter Eggers.

Other pea comb bantams:
--Brahmas (feathered legs, and specific feather colors/patterns that your birds do not have.
--Cornish (distinctive body shape, and specific feather colors/patterns that your birds do not have.)

So I judged them to be Easter Eggers by ruling out any other breeds that have pea combs (that I know of.)

Yeah, we have no idea about #1 and #5 either, we think they must be some sort of bantam specific breed, because I've never seen anything like them in regular chickens, but there were plenty like them where we got our bantams from. But who knows, they may be just an uncommon chicken breed or mix.

Because Easter Eggers can have variable comb types, and because I wasn't quite sure what comb type I was seeing in those photos, I think there's a good chance #1 and #5 are Easter Eggers as well.

Easter Eggers can come in any feather color or pattern, but in practice they tend not to match the specific colors required in other chicken breeds. So any chicken where I cannot identify the color, I guess it might be an Easter Egger.

The hatcheries that ship chicks to TSC try to hatch and sell only chickens of recognizable types. So they do pure breeds. And they do specific crosses, like sexlinks. And they do Easter Eggers (defined by egg color) and turkens (naked necks) as mixed-color groups. But they do not just mix random roosters and hens and sell the offspring.

About the Old English Game Bantam, yeah, I'd never heard of them before either, and when I looked them up some were white and black like him and others were red in coloring.

Old English Game Bantams come in many colors, and are quite common in bantam assortments. So it's a reasonable guess, although I don't know for sure. I would expect them to be healthy, and to reproduce well--how else would they be so common?

Thanks for your confirmation on the Sebrights, and I never knew that Rose combs were bad for fertility!

Usually, if a hen mates once a week, she will lay fertile eggs for more than a week. So if she mates just once each week, she will lay fertile eggs all the time.

If she does that with a rooster who's pure for the rose comb gene, she may lay infertile eggs toward the end of the week. The issue is with sperm not living as long. So the hen needs to mate several times each week in order to lay fertile eggs all the time. With the number of chickens you're dealing with, the roosters will probably mate with each hen frequently enough that eggs will all be fertile.

Yikes, I wish our one single comb Sebright male hadn't got out of the coop and got eaten

If you got four Sebrights, and two had single combs: there is a VERY good chance that at least one of your other two carries the single comb gene. The hatchery clearly has plenty of single comb genes floating around in their Sebright flock.

And if one of your roosters carries the single comb gene, he should be just as fertile as if he had a single comb himself. (And, with that hen, half of his chicks would have single combs, and half would have rose combs.)

I really do not think you have to be concerned about the rose comb affecting fertility--it would matter to a hatchery that deals with large numbers, but not to you.

I initially brought it up so I could point out "if this is the problem with Sebrights, it shouldn't bother you."

...oh well, hopefully these guys will be fertile enough to reproduce and they'll pass on the rose combs to keep the breeds standard too. Yeah, that does sound like a cool idea, maybe if the Sebrights lose the rose comb they'll be a little easier to breed and they won't go extinct. Thanks for your info on Hen feathering, I was really hoping they'd be non-hen-feathered too, hopefully these guys can reproduce, or our little guy will have to be the father of all the chicks! I guess he's happy, lol At least since these guys seem to meet the standards we could show them if we wanted to.

I just went and read the wikipedia article on Sebrights. It looks they have several things that make breeding difficult. I think it's probably caused by too many breeders, for too many years, choosing the ones that look "right" and then raising their offspring, no matter how difficult. If the hen lays very few eggs, and only some are fertile, but you hatch as many as you can; and then if the chicks are weak and sickly but you carefully raise as many as you can--does anyone really expect the next generation to be better? But if people carefully select for the hens that lay the most eggs, for the roosters with the best fertility, and for the chicks that are healthiest: they may end up with birds that don't look quite as perfect.

If you want Sebrights that will reproduce easily, buying chicks that came from a hatchery is probably the best possible start. The hatchery wants to sell chicks, not waste time pampering finicky birds So hatchery birds often look a little bit wrong, but lay more eggs as compared with birds from breeders who care about appearance or shows.

Yeah, it seems we'll probably have to wait until next spring for these guys to start laying.

Pullets will probably start to lay eggs sooner than next spring.

Broodiness is when a hen quits laying eggs and sits on them to hatch them--that is what I think is more likely in the springtime.

Wow, didn't know bantams were generally more broody! Do you know if Easter Egger Bantams lay the same amount of eggs as regular EEs? These guys will probably have to be the mothers of our flock!

People deliberately bred out the broody trait for commercial egg layers. But grocery stores sell big eggs, not little ones. So no-one bothered to breed bantams that lay well and skip being broody.

Easter Eggers are not consistent--I would expect that the ones from some hatcheries lay better than the ones from other hatcheries, but have no idea which are the better ones.

In general, the bantam ones probably do not lay as well as the big ones. That's because for the big ones, the hatchery just needs to be sure they lay colored eggs. For bantam ones, the hatchery needs to have small birds, in addition to the colored eggs. The more traits you select for, the less progress you make on each one.

But Easter Egger bantams are probably among the best-laying of bantam breeds.
And some of them might go broody in the spring to hatch eggs for you, too.

If you cross a Sebright rooster to Easter Egger hens, you should get some daughters that lay blue or green eggs (=Easter Eggers), and you might also get some that lay not-blue eggs. I can't be sure what the chicks will look like--probably have some gold and some black in their feathers, but probably not in a neatly laced pattern.

 

[Ms Clucky]

you won't be able to tell with the sebrights until one starts crowing. They have the same kind of feathers.

 

[NatJ]

you won't be able to tell with the sebrights until one starts crowing. They have the same kind of feathers.

Comb size is pretty distinctive, in this case.

 

[birdlover2]

Ameraucanas have pea combs, puffy cheeks, lay blue or green eggs, and come in certain specific colors.

Easter Eggers lay blue or green eggs, sometimes look vaguely like Ameraucanas, but can come in any combination of colors and comb types. They are what happens when hatcheries take Ameraucanas and select for better egg production, but do not care about color or puff cheeks or other details of appearance.

Easter Eggers often do have pea combs, because of the Ameraucana heritage. Very few other bantams have pea combs. So I think the ones with pea combs are Easter Eggers.

Other pea comb bantams:
--Brahmas (feathered legs, and specific feather colors/patterns that your birds do not have.
--Cornish (distinctive body shape, and specific feather colors/patterns that your birds do not have.)

So I judged them to be Easter Eggers by ruling out any other breeds that have pea combs (that I know of.)



Because Easter Eggers can have variable comb types, and because I wasn't quite sure what comb type I was seeing in those photos, I think there's a good chance #1 and #5 are Easter Eggers as well.

Easter Eggers can come in any feather color or pattern, but in practice they tend not to match the specific colors required in other chicken breeds. So any chicken where I cannot identify the color, I guess it might be an Easter Egger.

The hatcheries that ship chicks to TSC try to hatch and sell only chickens of recognizable types. So they do pure breeds. And they do specific crosses, like sexlinks. And they do Easter Eggers (defined by egg color) and turkens (naked necks) as mixed-color groups. But they do not just mix random roosters and hens and sell the offspring.



Old English Game Bantams come in many colors, and are quite common in bantam assortments. So it's a reasonable guess, although I don't know for sure. I would expect them to be healthy, and to reproduce well--how else would they be so common?




Usually, if a hen mates once a week, she will lay fertile eggs for more than a week. So if she mates just once each week, she will lay fertile eggs all the time.

If she does that with a rooster who's pure for the rose comb gene, she may lay infertile eggs toward the end of the week. The issue is with sperm not living as long. So the hen needs to mate several times each week in order to lay fertile eggs all the time. With the number of chickens you're dealing with, the roosters will probably mate with each hen frequently enough that eggs will all be fertile.


If you got four Sebrights, and two had single combs: there is a VERY good chance that at least one of your other two carries the single comb gene. The hatchery clearly has plenty of single comb genes floating around in their Sebright flock.

And if one of your roosters carries the single comb gene, he should be just as fertile as if he had a single comb himself. (And, with that hen, half of his chicks would have single combs, and half would have rose combs.)

I really do not think you have to be concerned about the rose comb affecting fertility--it would matter to a hatchery that deals with large numbers, but not to you.

I initially brought it up so I could point out "if this is the problem with Sebrights, it shouldn't bother you."



I just went and read the wikipedia article on Sebrights. It looks they have several things that make breeding difficult. I think it's probably caused by too many breeders, for too many years, choosing the ones that look "right" and then raising their offspring, no matter how difficult. If the hen lays very few eggs, and only some are fertile, but you hatch as many as you can; and then if the chicks are weak and sickly but you carefully raise as many as you can--does anyone really expect the next generation to be better? But if people carefully select for the hens that lay the most eggs, for the roosters with the best fertility, and for the chicks that are healthiest: they may end up with birds that don't look quite as perfect.

If you want Sebrights that will reproduce easily, buying chicks that came from a hatchery is probably the best possible start. The hatchery wants to sell chicks, not waste time pampering finicky birds So hatchery birds often look a little bit wrong, but lay more eggs as compared with birds from breeders who care about appearance or shows.



Pullets will probably start to lay eggs sooner than next spring.

Broodiness is when a hen quits laying eggs and sits on them to hatch them--that is what I think is more likely in the springtime.



People deliberately bred out the broody trait for commercial egg layers. But grocery stores sell big eggs, not little ones. So no-one bothered to breed bantams that lay well and skip being broody.

Easter Eggers are not consistent--I would expect that the ones from some hatcheries lay better than the ones from other hatcheries, but have no idea which are the better ones.

In general, the bantam ones probably do not lay as well as the big ones. That's because for the big ones, the hatchery just needs to be sure they lay colored eggs. For bantam ones, the hatchery needs to have small birds, in addition to the colored eggs. The more traits you select for, the less progress you make on each one.

But Easter Egger bantams are probably among the best-laying of bantam breeds.
And some of them might go broody in the spring to hatch eggs for you, too.

If you cross a Sebright rooster to Easter Egger hens, you should get some daughters that lay blue or green eggs (=Easter Eggers), and you might also get some that lay not-blue eggs. I can't be sure what the chicks will look like--probably have some gold and some black in their feathers, but probably not in a neatly laced pattern.

Wow! I love your long and detailed response. I do need to clear one thing up, however. The Sebrights and the (likely) Old English Game Bantam came from my mother's first batch of 6 from Tractor Supply, (4 which are still alive today), the other 5 came from an Amish farm and are likely mutts of some kind because they weren't sold as any particulair breed, which is also probably why we're having so much trouble determining what breed they are, (since they're likely not one particulair breed). They are around the same age since we got ones a similair age to ours to prevent problems integrating the flock. Should've probably put that in the original post! Sorry for any confusion. Also, I asked my mother this morning and she said that they are all probably 6-7 months old.

Extra lol when it comes to your Old English Game Bantam comments. And it's interesting how many different colors they come in.

I think it's likely your hypothesis about why the Sebrights have so many problems is right, and I hope that since ours doesn't look perfect she'll lay more eggs, be more broody, and have more viable offspring, but only time will tell. Would the ones from Tractor Supply be from a hatchery? Glad you explained about the rose combs, so as long as ours are persistant maters there shouldn't be a problem and that's been the case so far, though they mainly just chase the hen around pecking their heads and trying to jump on them, so they haven't been successful yet! It's funny cause they do all that and yet when the hen lays down so they could mate with her they just ignore it lol.

Oh, got it, so they'll just lay eggs and not be broody on them, which makes sense. So we should be expecting eggs from our EEs/EE crosses very soon. What I found about Sebrights, however, is that they usually only lay in late spring to early summer. There's a chance we could see some eggs yet this year, as it is early summer, but they also tend to not lay the first laying "season." I know most chickens lay all year round pretty much, and thus there isn't really a season, but in these chickens there is apparently. Of course, every chicken is an individual, and ours could break the mold.

Makes sense that Bantams would be more broody and lay less eggs then. Their eggs tend to be only for hatching chicks, so I suppose they would need less of them. At the very least we should expect them to go broody easier than other chickens. When my mother had her flock of adult birds, only one hen went broody! It was a Golden Comet/Red Star, which is kind of strange I think, since these birds are mainly bred for eggs as well, just prooves that every chicken is an individual, I suppose. That's great that Easter Eggers are known for broodiness and the best bantam layers. I think we're starting to see signs of egg laying behavior and/or broodiness already, (see pic of possible broody-looking hen in post above my post you responded to). We're hoping that they go broody enough next spring to hatch our Sebright's eggs. Do you think there's a high likely-hood of that?

It will certainly be interesting to see what the chicks look like if the EEs and Sebrights breed. The EE Old English Game Bantam mix will be interesting to see as well. I'll probably post pics of the chicks on BYC if and when the chicks are hatched

 

[birdlover2]

you won't be able to tell with the sebrights until one starts crowing. They have the same kind of feathers.

Oh, I know which are hens and roosters. I'm looking for Hen Feathering, a genetic trait that makes the feathers rounder like the hens instead of pointier like roosters' feathers should be. It's a trait that Sebrights generally have, and some say it makes them less fertile or even infertile. The two Sebrights with deep red pea-combs are males, and the one with a pale regular comb is a female.

 

[NatJ]

The two Sebrights with deep red pea-combs are males

Typo, I think: Sebrights have rose combs, not pea.

 

[birdlover2]

Typo, I think: Sebrights have rose combs, not pea.

That's correct, I meant to say Rose, opps