My mother's bantam chickens, and questions about Sebrights

[NatJ]

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)...Would the ones from Tractor Supply be from a hatchery?

Yes, Tractor Supply gets them from a hatchery. So do most of the other stores that sell chicks.

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 particular breed).

In that case, I've got no idea what breeds are in them.
If they lay blue or green eggs, then they are Easter Eggers. If they lay any other color eggs, then "Barnyard Mix Bantams" would be the best term for them

If the Amish farm let them run all over and hatch their own eggs, they will be more likely to go broody, and the weakest and most stupid will have already died, so you get smarter and healthier ones.
If the farm kept them safely in pens and hatched eggs in an incubator, then that's about what a hatchery would do.

Also, I asked my mother this morning and she said that they are all probably 6-7 months old.

That should be old enough to lay eggs, unless they are really slow maturing. Any chance they're hiding nests somewhere? It is the time of year when they're most likely to be laying.

I think it's likely your hypothesis about why the Sebrights have so many problems is right

It happens with any kind of animal, when people raise only a few are are selecting for a bunch of special traits. If they don't remember to also select for reproductive ability, the breed eventually dies out.

Glad you explained about the rose combs, so as long as ours are persistant maters there shouldn't be a problem

For rose combs, yes that's right. Looks like you'll still have to deal with whether the female lays enough eggs, and how the chicks do.

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.

I would expect so, although as you noted--chickens are individuals.

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.

If at some point you have Sebrights that do lay during a longer season: you want to hatch eggs from those birds!

pic of possible broody-looking hen in post above my post you responded to

Sometimes they just do sit that way. I don't think it indicated broodiness unless it's on a nest.

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?

I think there's a good chance, but the timing might not be right--they might go broody before the Sebright starts laying, or she might lay a few eggs and then go broody herself, or they might all go broody at the same time when you might prefer to have them spread out to hatch the eggs laid over several weeks' time.

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

I'd like to see pictures of chicks, whenever such chicks come to exist

 

[birdlover2]

Yes, Tractor Supply gets them from a hatchery. So do most of the other stores that sell chicks.



In that case, I've got no idea what breeds are in them.
If they lay blue or green eggs, then they are Easter Eggers. If they lay any other color eggs, then "Barnyard Mix Bantams" would be the best term for them

If the Amish farm let them run all over and hatch their own eggs, they will be more likely to go broody, and the weakest and most stupid will have already died, so you get smarter and healthier ones.
If the farm kept them safely in pens and hatched eggs in an incubator, then that's about what a hatchery would do.


That should be old enough to lay eggs, unless they are really slow maturing. Any chance they're hiding nests somewhere? It is the time of year when they're most likely to be laying.


It happens with any kind of animal, when people raise only a few are are selecting for a bunch of special traits. If they don't remember to also select for reproductive ability, the breed eventually dies out.


For rose combs, yes that's right. Looks like you'll still have to deal with whether the female lays enough eggs, and how the chicks do.


I would expect so, although as you noted--chickens are individuals.



If at some point you have Sebrights that do lay during a longer season: you want to hatch eggs from those birds!


Sometimes they just do sit that way. I don't think it indicated broodiness unless it's on a nest.



I think there's a good chance, but the timing might not be right--they might go broody before the Sebright starts laying, or she might lay a few eggs and then go broody herself, or they might all go broody at the same time when you might prefer to have them spread out to hatch the eggs laid over several weeks' time.



I'd like to see pictures of chicks, whenever such chicks come to exist

Well, I guess that's about all my questions answered then, though I'd still like to know what sort of barnyard mix or EE cross or whole other breed together #1 and #5 are. I guess when they lay eggs if they're colored I'll know they're at least part EE. Maybe I'll just ask the people I got them from. I'll def post pics of the chicks if they come to exist, and try to tag u when it happens

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

Okay, so your Amish five look to be mixed, some may lay blue/green eggs because they look to have Easter Egger influence in them. Your OEG cockerel is of the Silver Duckwing variety. You're right that the others are Golden Sebrights. I understand that Sebrights have trouble being reared due to their size-very small and fragile. When breeding consult the American Standard of Perfection. A little pricey, but super interesting and important for breeding to produce the best specimens. To "save the breed" you want to breed as close to this standard as possible to create more uniform birds. This will be difficult starting with hatchery stock. You could breed successive generations to begin to get them closer to standard, or just start with some birds from a breeder without the time/money/effort. If your goal is to just get some healthy birds for fun, hatchery ones will be fine, but for saving the breed the best thing to happen is to perpetuate good quality stock

 

[birdlover2]

Okay, so your Amish five look to be mixed, some may lay blue/green eggs because they look to have Easter Egger influence in them. Your OEG cockerel is of the Silver Duckwing variety. You're right that the others are Golden Sebrights. I understand that Sebrights have trouble being reared due to their size-very small and fragile. When breeding consult the American Standard of Perfection. A little pricey, but super interesting and important for breeding to produce the best specimens. To "save the breed" you want to breed as close to this standard as possible to create more uniform birds. This will be difficult starting with hatchery stock. You could breed successive generations to begin to get them closer to standard, or just start with some birds from a breeder without the time/money/effort. If your goal is to just get some healthy birds for fun, hatchery ones will be fine, but for saving the breed the best thing to happen is to perpetuate good quality stock

Thanks for your reply! Thanks for telling us what variety our OEG is My mother and I don't yet know what we're going for with breeding them, but we certainly didn't start out trying to breed pure-bred Sebrights! In fact, as I've said in other thread posts and you've probably noticed, she just stumbled upon them at Tractor Supply. We just thought it would be cool since we never got to do that when I was growing up. Stumbling upon one of the rarest chicken breeds at Tractor Supply makes me suspicious of their stock, (they definately aren't pure-breds themselves, but we don't really care about that, what I am worried about is them not having the best fertility and other genes, perhaps they came from a weak cross and someone wanted to get rid of them, we're hoping they only did that because they're probably mixed with something). We may try breeding to the standard of perfection, but honestly we're not planning to show ours or anything. I would like to preserve the breed, but maybe to best preserve it we need to tweak it a little bit, since it's current traits seem to cause infertility and other problems when it comes to propogating their breed and this is likely a result of all that close inter-breeding to get the perfect bird. The main thing I'm interested in preserving is that beautiful laced pattern and other traits that really contribute to the bird's look like the slate blue legs and the color of their beak. (So I guess I'm not trying to save the breed in a traditional sense) but perhaps in future generations I'll try to breed good specimins with eachother in order to get closer to the standard of perfection, like I said, I don't know how far we'll go with this or how much we'll get into it, but right now it's just a waiting game for our one Sebright hen to start laying, and for whatever hens are most broody to go broody. I'll let you know how it turns out!

 

[NatJ]

Stumbling upon one of the rarest chicken breeds at Tractor Supply makes me suspicious of their stock, (they definately aren't pure-breds themselves, but we don't really care about that, what I am worried about is them not having the best fertility and other genes, perhaps they came from a weak cross and someone wanted to get rid of them, we're hoping they only did that because they're probably mixed with something).

Tractor Supply buys their chicks from a hatchery, not from random breeders.
And they are not really that rare. I just searched for Sebright at five different online hatcheries, and found them at four of those hatcheries

The hatchery almost certainly started with actual Sebrights (meaning, they looked like Sebrights, and someone said they were Sebrights.) Then they bred those chickens, sold most of the offspring, and saved a few to breed from next year. Repeated each year.

Given how many hatcheries sell them, they are probably not too hard to raise, either--the hatcheries are in business to make money by producing chicks to sell, not to preserve rare breeds. So they need chickens that do live and reproduce.

"Purebred" in chickens isn't quite the same as in some other animals like dogs.
The first few posts here have a fairly good explanation:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/q-what-exactly-constitutes-a-purebred-chicken.991742/

I would like to preserve the breed, but maybe to best preserve it we need to tweak it a little bit, since it's current traits seem to cause infertility and other problems when it comes to propogating their breed and this is likely a result of all that close inter-breeding to get the perfect bird. The main thing I'm interested in preserving is that beautiful laced pattern and other traits that really contribute to the bird's look like the slate blue legs and the color of their beak.

For that goal, you would want to hatch as many chicks as you can from your birds, and cull any that are obviously not-healthy or have obvious not-Sebright traits. But then, instead of choosing to breed from the ones with the very best lacing or perfectly shaped combs, look for the hens that lay the most eggs and the roosters with high fertility, and breed from them.

In practice, the hatcheries are probably doing something similar--they have to sell chickens that recognizably belong to the breed (otherwise people quit buying from them), but other than that they want healthy, productive birds.