What do you *do* with Bantams?

[TurtleFeathers]

Quote:
OMG - if you find them, please tell me where they are!!!

I find that people are curious, and they DO ask questions, but when I answer them, their eyes just glaze over, or they politely just excuse themselves after a minute or two. For that reason, I generally try to stay off the chicken topic when I'm in a social situation, and when someone brings it up, lately all I do is sit there and just nod, like "yeah, mmm hmmm, yep..."

And when I DO find someone around here that DOES have chickens, theirs are usually the "production type" that lay large brown eggs and are not handlable - so they put mine down because they're small, tame and they lay little eggs in different colors! All I can say is "each to their own"... *I* like my little FOOFY chickens!

Its a relief to know I'm not the only one that has this problem! LOL!

 

[FrizzleFreak]

On the egg thing-
I did a science experiment on egg weights in standard and bantam chicks, weighing them through incubation and hatching. ONe of the things I noticed was that in bantam eggs, the yolk is the same size as in a standard egg. More of the good stuff!
(experiment results: bantam chick is proportionately larger to egg.)
WIth silkies, you better collect every egg you get-because if you don't, every egg they lay will turn into a fluffy little chicky.
GET COCHIN FRIZZLES!
what? did you hear something? I didn't say anything, did you?.....

 

[19hhbelgian]

#1 reason to get bantams...

That is Peep-eep getting a ride from Maddie

He is a bantam blue salmon favorolle. Peep is my #1 lap chicken.

We use our banty eggs for cooking, deviled eggs... I also have seramas - GET SOME!!

You will become addicted and will never be able to stop!!

 

[catwalk]

Quote:

very subtle

 

[thereseiam]

You guys crack me up--it's like being a patient in the same mental ward!

I am off to the farm store to pick up cracked corn, and then to the man with the Serama chicks. He has everything from a couple days to four weeks. I'll probably get the older ones, or possibly a mix of both?

OSUman, I got the ex-battery hens from an Amish farm. I'm less than an hour away from Kalona, Iowa, where there are a lot of Amish who factory farm chickens. A lot of them will buy 5-10 thousand birds, and then sell off the extras--if you drive up Hwy 1 between Iowa City and Kalona you'll see all sorts of signs for eggs, chickens, etc. I paid $2.50 a piece for yearling hens who have been laying up a storm and have actually tamed down really well. Only a few of them will let me pet them, but they all gather around my feet and talk to me a mile a minute--I think they must be speaking Pennsylvania Dutch though since they're Amish.

I do wish that they hadn't had their beaks clipped, but there's no such thing as a battery hen with a full beak I'm afraid. I'm pretty sure that they come from the hatchery already clipped.

I'm one side of the pen away from free ranging (not exactly free, as they will have about an acre but not our entire place as I want to try to keep them separate from my dogs) and worry about the girls without beaks, so even though I liked the idea of getting these girls out of where they were, I'll probably stick to raising chicks from this point so I can have all full beaked birds.

Oh, and just for the record, I already have six cochins, and you're right, they are way cute--I just love their fuzzy little feet!

Therese

 

[MAllen]

I like my bantams because, well.... standing next to them I look really really tall!

 

[Preservation Acres]

This has been a good thread. I have been saying the same thing...What do you DO with them?

 

[Megs]

i love my bantams (so much i have like 60 of them! aaaa) anyways, i incubate their eggs spring-fall and sell the purebred chicks (also grow out some to sell around 6 months, and keep some new stock for show/eggs etc), which are quite sought after in my area, so its a nice little side buisness. I also eat some of their eggs, very tasy, takes about 2 eggs to equal 1 XL (i weighed them! lol) so thats not to bad considering they eat so much less. other than that some of them are pets and i love to cuddle with and hold them, which is a good thing because they sure dont lay much int he winter (so far, though i dont have lights, not to worried about it)

 

[djmooney]

bantams go broody often and site on my regular hens eggs.
i half 5 bantams and 10 regular hens and the bantams are way freindlier so i half them for pets

 

[walkswithdog]

dance dance dance... my birchen cochin chicks from Ideal ship this week... dance dance..