What is the benefit of bantam chickens?

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Bantams
Flowers
Watching NASCAR on TV
Golf
Playing card games
Small breeds of dogs
Chocolate
Bubbles

None of which are very useful in a practical sense.

I, however, choose a more interesting life.

 

[Heckel's Hens]

Quote:
I don't "get" bantams....but that was VERY well said!!! Embrace what you love!

 

[gryeyes]

I was not at all interested in midget chickens. Oh, excuse me, "bantam" breed chickens. I like large fowl chickens, nice big, fluffy hens. Nothing silly, like silkies. Until I went to a farm to buy some young Cochins, about six weeks old. Found the ad on Craigslist when I was looking for Cochins (long before I started incubating and hatching, I might add) and absolutely, totally missed the word "bantam" in the ad.

Once I got to the farm, I could not resist the little things and bought two of 'em. Both supposed to be pullets, only one of 'em was a girl. Funny little fluffy goobers, scooting around the yard with their bedroom slippers on.....

Then I wanted white EEs, saw some chicks at a feed store and uh oh, they were bantams. Hmmmm. Oh well, got 'em anyway.

Then I saw Silver Sebright chicks, straight run, and bought two. Both turned out to be cockerels. Tried again and got two pullets, one Silver and one Golden. They're adorable (the pullets). The roosters are also adorable, but can be obnoxious.

By then, the barrier to bantams had been thoroughly broken.

They're adorable, they provide fertilizer like big chickens, eat just as many bugs as do the large fowl, eat less, and are cute as heck. So the eggs are smaller. Eh.

I really like what Neil Grassbaugh wrote!

 

[Attack Chicken]

I've relized that when I started selling eggs for eating I sold bantams for $2.50 a dz and large leghorn eggs for $3 a dozen. Most of the costumers prefer the taste of the bantam egg. Not sure why but thats what they buy from me more than the leghorn eggs. Then again I have like 1 or 2 people who prefer the white eggs because their white...

 

[country freedom]

I am purposely going to order bantams, with a few longtails thrown in.
You can have more.
Most are great broodies, so more chicks.
Easier handling.
We don't eat alot of eggs, we won't care if they don't lay throughout the winter.
My family is downsizing, so we don't need a large, whole chicken everytime we eat chicken.
I will be getting Bantam Cornish, to cross with other breeds I'll be ordering.

My goal is to have a flock of mutts: Sustainable, broody, and hardy, mixed long-tailed, long-legged, speckled meat birds.

Like most people say, there's not alot of meat on them bones, so, I also figure the masses of hungry people will go for all of the large fowl first before they set eyes on bantams.

 

[mkeawsh]

Weightwatchers Points Plus- 1 Standard Egg - 2 pts.
1 Bantam Egg - 1 pt.
Try cutting a standard egg in half to get just that one pt.

 

[phasianidae]

Heres a good reason- because Maiden Rocks only come in bantam form! LOL

 

[nuchickontheblock]

I love my bantams. they are our first chickens and we decided that we wouldn't ever get full size ones. In the future we would only keep bantams - we have a moderate sized suburban back yard and they are perfect. For us they are pets -- fun to watch, easy to handle, the kids love them, they lay cute eggs. Since I've owned chickens, I've stopped eating chicken (I picture those little drumsticks running around my yard) so I'm not really concerned about their utility from a poultry livestock point of view.

 

[TheMainException]

Quote:
Due to their size, they require less space in the coop, they can deal with a smaller run, and they eat less.

They also fly better. Many people note that bantam roos can be meaner, but I've never found this to be the case. While their eggs are smaller...mine have a tendency to lay GiANT eggs that are twice the size of average store bought eggs relatively often and even so, there average eggs have yokes the same size of store bought eggs (which really surprised me). My bantams are barnyard mixes and I have some very small bantams (about 1 pound) and some larger ones (2.5 pounds).

The only roo I processed was enough for about 2-3 people. He was an average bantam size, not too big, but also not 1 pound.

And...yea, they are darn cute.

 

[spiritdance]

Quote:
Yes, but then you're loosing egg production from a large egg layer! Bantam broodies still give you eggs when they aren't broody (cochin eggs aren't really THAT small), and if you have a few of them to hatch eggs you can get large dual purpose breeds that won't go broody and therefore lay more reliably. Besides, whereas a bantam egg is about half the size of a large egg, the bantams eat about 1/3 as much food - it's a higher food -to-egg conversion rate. So ideally, you could get twice the bantams, feed them for only 2/3 the feed cost, and get just as much egg production by weight. I don't do this (I have several large breeds), but that's the theory, and I must say my bantam cochins are excellent layers and the eggs are only slightly smaller than small eggs in the store.