Success My First Swap!!

[dbolman]

Saturday morning I headed to my first SWAP in Hudsonville Mi. I called the guy earlier in the wek and he told me to get there early (like 6:30) He also told me there would be 50-80 vendors. I thought, yeah right!! Anyway my girls and I got there at 6:40 and it was already busy. IT was so amazing. Every chicken, duck, pheasant, peacock. quail, dove and turkey you could imagine. It was so fun. I bought a buff Brahma hen, a light Brahma (standard-huge) a mille fluer and a Welsummer hen (psycho) Oh yeah and my dad bought my girls a baby lionhead bunny !! Whats one more creature at this point. There were so many beautiful pairs of birds. All of my new babies are doing fine except my Mille Fluer D'ucle has a tear bubble in one eye. It will clear up and then come back.Looks like little tiny bubbbles. Any ideas?
After getting my Buff Brahma hen I am kind of contemplating selling all my chickens and just having that one breed. She is so beautiful, little and layed back. There was a lady at the SWAP that had just Buff Brahmas and they were healthy beautiful birds. (very sweet) Ofcourse you think I got her name...NOPE Are these birds good layers. I know the eggs will be small; I don't care about that. I just don't know if it is good to have 9 chickens and each one a different breed. How long do I have to keep the new chickens in the coop before they can go free range like the others? I feel bad leaving them in the coop with such nice weather.

Tracy

 

[ThePamperedPullet]

Brahma's are sweet birds. Not great egg layers though. Buffs are harder to find than the light and dark. The bantam buffs are really hard to find. You can mix breeds if they get along with each other. We have 95 chickens in 28 different breeds. Of those, about 60 are all out together. Of the ones that are together, there are bantams and heavies, young and old. Many people don't like that practice but it works well for us. Our one bantam roo is the alpha male and keeps even the big heavy roos in line. You would need to seperate if you want to hatch chicks of a particular breed line though.

 

[roostercruiser]

I have buff brahmas and some of my hens lay eggs as big as standards lay. Most aren't the best layers but I do have one that lays well.