Bantam Breed Recommendations

[kotapony]

I know a number on here have chickens, so I'm looking for recommendations on bantam breeds and a hatchery that will do small orders. 

It amuses my mom to have a pair of chickens. I built her a small coup, and my daughter likes to go feed the chickens when she's down there. These are pretty well just pets, and bantams are just plain cute. The first year, I got her a roo from a neighbor. I named him Kevin, after my brother. He was a really nice bird. But he didn't adapt well to living in my chicken house for the winter. I only have about 8 hens, but apparently the big girls scared him. He lived on a high perch for a couple weeks before escaping out a window, never to be seen again. 

Last year I just went with a run of the mill pair from TSC. I did end up with a roo and a hen. Sadly, a rat got the hen. The roo is now living with my laying flock. He's a really pretty bird but is mean as snot. I'm amused by the rotten little bugger, but can't have him around my daughter (mom's not too thrilled with vicious roosters either).

This year I thought it might be worth going with a hatchery so I can pick breed. I like color, so I was thinking maybe the Mille fleur. I really only want 2 or so, so I need a place that will do a small order. I realize I'll have to get more than 2 even with a small order, and I'm hoping to maybe find someone who might want to go in with me. 

Anyway, does anyone have a calm, friendly breed or hatchery they really like?

 

[skysthelimit]

I have a pair of bantam cochins. They are pets, and I carry them around frequently. they eat from my hand. The hen actually runs up to me when I come home from work. She is the only chicken with a name. If you were closer I would give them to you I want to keep a pure flock, so I'm finding new homes for him and his little hen.

 

[kotapony]

Seems I'm too far from everything. I kept watching the local classifieds, but at 14 mpg in our truck it's quickly cheaper to order than drive the distances I'm finding.

Mom spoils her birds rotten. She actually buys fresh produce to mix up a daily salad for them. Mine are lucky to get laying mash every day. :shock:

 

[curlysue]

I love Cochin bantams we always had some and usually even the roosters were tame.some feedstores will order chickens.tractor supply does get some bantams.theres a swap meet in uniontown i dont know how far that is from you.you can get Cochins there.also ducks, geese and other birds.

 

[akane]

If you want really sweet birds japanese bantams or d'uccle. Make sure to keep only laid back birds with them. I kept a trio of japs in the house as pets for nearly a year with chicken diapers and everything. The roos are extremely sweet to their hens so you can even keep a pair in a large cage/pen without the hen getting torn up from mating but when attacked my roos died protecting my hens while I lost not a single bantam hen and all my standards that were watched by the bigger roo. The d'uccle were quite similar.

If you want something with a bit of attitude, not aggressive just active and busy along with willing to defend themselves, then old english game bantams come in many very interesting colors with interesting personalities but you have to watch what you put with them since they are feisty. Those would be the most durable common yet interesting breeds I'm familiar with. I tried a few others but found them either too boring and common for me (everyone has cochins and silkies) or too sensitive and difficult to raise.

If you want really interesting but kind of hard to get try to find someone with bantam EE who will truly lay colored eggs. I absolutely loved the variety and the blue to green eggs but finding true bantams that will consistently lay colored eggs is difficult.

 

[skysthelimit]

If you want really sweet birds japanese bantams or d'uccle. Make sure to keep only laid back birds with them. I kept a trio of japs in the house as pets for nearly a year with chicken diapers and everything. The roos are extremely sweet to their hens so you can even keep a pair in a large cage/pen without the hen getting torn up from mating but when attacked my roos died protecting my hens while I lost not a single bantam hen and all my standards that were watched by the bigger roo. The d'uccle were quite similar.

If you want something with a bit of attitude, not aggressive just active and busy along with willing to defend themselves, then old english game bantams come in many very interesting colors with interesting personalities but you have to watch what you put with them since they are feisty. Those would be the most durable common yet interesting breeds I'm familiar with. I tried a few others but found them either too boring and common for me (everyone has cochins and silkies) or too sensitive and difficult to raise.

If you want really interesting but kind of hard to get try to find someone with bantam EE who will truly lay colored eggs. I absolutely loved the variety and the blue to green eggs but finding true bantams that will consistently lay colored eggs is difficult.[/quote

So true. Most banties, though they are usually broody, are not the best for egg layers.

 

[TariLynn]

Mille Fleurs are great...but they are their own breed and then Old English Game Bantams can also come in that color. We have the Old English Game Bantam variety. We also have other varieties of OEG and we love those little guys...we have gotten a few mean roosters from time to time, not sure why - one we hatched in an incubator and hand raised and the other one we bought as a chick from Tractor Supply so I guess it can just be their personality. We have found for the most part that the OEG Bantams are mostly very friendly birds.

 

[akane]

So true. Most banties, though they are usually broody, are not the best for egg layers.

I don't see anything where anyone said anything about eggs. I see cute, friendly, bantam... I never saw them as too bad for eggs though. The bantam EE were the most broody and a bit of a pain but I had 2 japs go broody (one hatched a dozen standard and a half dozen bantam eggs in her hole in the shavings) and 1 d'uccle that I decided not to hatch any then so stuck in a rabbit cage for 1 week and problem solved. Otherwise I saw generally 3/4ths of my birds laying eggs daily through winter. Only annoying thing was that you had to weigh the eggs to cook with them because you couldn't just pick out 3 or 4 same sized medium or large eggs. We had to use a kitchen scale and add and subtract eggs until we reached what would be the average of the number the recipe called for.

 

[MaggieJ]

How about Silkies? They are small, friendly and perfectly suited to being pet chickens. Iggysbabysitter has a pair that are just delightful.

silkie-rooster-t6110.html

 

[Cattle Cait]

I raised buff Cochin banties for a few years and I adored them all. They had the sweetest personalities and were very calm and cuddly. The only thing I didn't like was that their large single combs were prone to frostbite, but since mine were show birds they were inside most of the time and didn't have that problem.

 

[skysthelimit]

So true. Most banties, though they are usually broody, are not the best for egg layers.

I don't see anything where anyone said anything about eggs. I see cute, friendly, bantam... I never saw them as too bad for eggs though. The bantam EE were the most broody and a bit of a pain but I had 2 japs go broody (one hatched a dozen standard and a half dozen bantam eggs in her hole in the shavings) and 1 d'uccle that I decided not to hatch any then so stuck in a rabbit cage for 1 week and problem solved. Otherwise I saw generally 3/4ths of my birds laying eggs daily through winter. Only annoying thing was that you had to weigh the eggs to cook with them because you couldn't just pick out 3 or 4 same sized medium or large eggs. We had to use a kitchen scale and add and subtract eggs until we reached what would be the average of the number the recipe called for.

Do all comments made have to be distinctly about what the OP says? Just saying, since some people assume that chickens will lay eggs with the same production rate. Might want to know ahead of time. A good way for people to learn about things they might not have asked is to add offhand comments. I've discovered quite a few important things by little bits people dropped even though I did not directly ask the question.
Lots of people, including myself, have bantams that do not lay eggs the whole winter, like my standards do, and depending on the breed, are not for a high production of eggs. If anyone thinks at anytime that they might want eggs, even if the chicken is just a cute pet now, research which breeds have the best egg production.<br /><br />__________ Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:42 am __________<br /><br />

I raised buff Cochin banties for a few years and I adored them all. They had the sweetest personalities and were very calm and cuddly. The only thing I didn't like was that their large single combs were prone to frostbite, but since mine were show birds they were inside most of the time and didn't have that problem.

And for that reason, I'm thinking of switching to dominiques. The poor frizzle cochin does not have much of his comb left, the bag balm did little to protect it.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

A good way for people to learn about things they might not have asked is to add offhand comments.

I totally agree. I would rather have broad answers than specifics- the OP may very well know those aspects, but this information is available to all who care to read it, and they may be less knowledgeable.

I have had Mille Fleurs hens and OEG's of both sexes, but found the Fleurs to be more friendly. I enjoyed the OEG rooster's confident attitude- he had no problems with the full sized rooster, and that amused me. We kept them more as a novelty than anything else, but I may look into some of the more productive egg layers this year.

We currently have some Silkies, but they are not as diminutive as the other breeds mentioned- they fall between banties and full sized chickens. They have a very sweet nature, and love to sit on Queenpup's lap.

 

[akane]

It was more the way the comment was added. Like you shouldn't consider bantams because they don't lay enough eggs rather than by the way bantams don't lay as well as most (most) standards.

How about Silkies? They are small, friendly and perfectly suited to being pet chickens.

Just watch your skin if they go broody. They've been compared to velociraptors when broody. :lol: The chicken forum jokes about how we have found the link between dinosours and birds in a silkie when it's being possessive.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Just watch your skin if they go broody. They've been compared to velociraptors when broody. :lol:

Really? :lol: They are so sweet you would never expect that! I'll warn Queenpup!

 

[skysthelimit]

It was more the way the comment was added. Like you shouldn't consider bantams because they don't lay enough eggs rather than by the way bantams don't lay as well as most (most) standards.

I have bantams, and I said so in my first post. And I was commenting on someone who mentioned the consistency of bantams laying colored eggs, so I believe the comment on bantams not always being consistent egg layers was simply agreeing with that comment. And I said not always, because it still is dependent on the breed.
Once I decided what I really wanted from my chickens, there were a whole lot of chickens I culled, and I could have saved myself some time if I had known that about the bantams.

 

[Cattle Cait]

__________ Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:42 am __________

I raised buff Cochin banties for a few years and I adored them all. They had the sweetest personalities and were very calm and cuddly. The only thing I didn't like was that their large single combs were prone to frostbite, but since mine were show birds they were inside most of the time and didn't have that problem.

And for that reason, I'm thinking of switching to dominiques. The poor frizzle cochin does not have much of his comb left, the bag balm did little to protect it.

We have a small purebred flock of Dominiques and while their combs do well through the winter, their laying doesn't hold over well into their second year, and they have horribly scrawny carcasses. We got them because we heard that they made great dual-purpose birds, but we've now got Buckeyes for meat and keep the Dominiques just for eggs because they aren't worth the work of butchering.

 

[akane]

I mentioned colored eggs and by consistent I did not mean inconsistent laying. I meant laying brown or white instead of blue or green. It's hard to find bantams that always lay colored when they lay. Those were my worst broodies but they still laid every single day they were not sitting on a clutch and to break them of being broody isn't that hard. Put them in a rabbit cage up off the ground for a week so they have nothing but cool wire to sit on and problem solved. They'll go back to laying and you'll still get 200 or more eggs in a year from every bantam I've kept .

 

[skysthelimit]

__________ Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:42 am __________

I raised buff Cochin banties for a few years and I adored them all. They had the sweetest personalities and were very calm and cuddly. The only thing I didn't like was that their large single combs were prone to frostbite, but since mine were show birds they were inside most of the time and didn't have that problem.

And for that reason, I'm thinking of switching to dominiques. The poor frizzle cochin does not have much of his comb left, the bag balm did little to protect it.

We have a small purebred flock of Dominiques and while their combs do well through the winter, their laying doesn't hold over well into their second year, and they have horribly scrawny carcasses. We got them because we heard that they made great dual-purpose birds, but we've now got Buckeyes for meat and keep the Dominiques just for eggs because they aren't worth the work of butchering.

Ok, that's good to know. That's why I stick with the Barred rock, nice meat and eggs.