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RE: Look out Quail, My chickens are joining the Egg laying group!
What a wonderful discovery to find, after so much work! We are in our first year homesteading and got our very! first! egg! this summer as well. There was MUCH rejoicing. Congratulations, and may there be many more eggs to follow.
Out of curiosity, what breed of bantam chickens do you have?
Also, I've been trying to upvote this, and its not working at the moment. I'll try again soon!
I have kept chickens for years. This was my first egg of my latest batch of chickens, Didn't have any last year, but I still always get excited for the first egg! My little flock (2 roosters and five hens) are as follows both roos and two hens are Self blue Cochin bantams, 2 more hens that are Porcelain D'uccle, and one silly pure white polish hen. These are my 'play' flock in that I raised them to breed some fun color size feather combination in the future and because they are SUPER friendly and make great broody hens. Now that they are laying, we shall get a broody gal or two so I can put my Quail eggs under them to hatch more quail as well as my next flock of chickens. These next chickens will be free range and I am doing Cream Legbar, as they lay blue eggs are good foragers and also have sexed chicks, meaning at hatch you know what's going to be roo or hen. I have kept many varietys, but always like Cochins and silkies for mother/broody/pets that also still give a good supply of eggs. You can't have a kinder friendlier roo than a Cochin bantam or silkie. However you need a meaner rooster for free ranging. Wow, sorry this response is almost a post in and of itself. Don't get me started about birds or I won't shut up :)
Haha, you're in good company. I've dreamed of having chickens for years, and now that we're finally on our own land, I won't shut up about them either!
I've never kept bantams, but yours sound amazing! At the moment, I've got a crazy mixed flock of Easter Eggers, Buff Orpingtons, Speckled Sussex, Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island Red, and Brahma birds. Our goal is to make some crazy mutt chicken that survives well on our land, free-ranging and foraging. Have no idea what they'll look like, but that's part of the fun I guess!
I've got secret dreams about getting my kids a Cochin bantam to help them learn how to keep chickens (with supervision, of course!). They're just so...dreamily...sweet!
I can't say enough about cochins, even the full size, they are the sweetest lap dog chickens as much so as the silkie. I love orpingtons, and have kept those. I have also had the speckled sussex. It's also a great way to teach anyone about genetics through color. The Self blue of my hens are due to a gene that turns any black in a hen to the 'blue lavender grey' of the self blue. You can spend hours making the punnet squares for various genes in color and such. And the fact that you can breed for chicken sexing? IT's all very interesting and fun, to a chicken nerd ;)