fighting bantams

Some of my chickens are getting old and gradually dying off now, so recently I went down to the market to buy some new stock. I normally buy White Sussex as this is the breed we had on my Auntie’s farm when I was a boy. The trip to the market was disappointing as the specimens on view were a sorry looking lot. I am always concerned about introducing disease into the flock so I passed them over. What caught my eye though was a beautiful looking little blue bantam hen and her four chicks. They are called blue bantams but they are almost a dove-grey in colour and look very appealing.
I have always fancied rearing bantams so, on an impulse, I parted with 25 euros and took the clucking little clutch home in the truck and felt very pleased with myself. As I got nearer the house though, I started to get worried. Introducing new birds is typically traumatic as the “pecking order” is adjusted and some of my recent additions had had a hard time of it, even being excluded from the hen house at night until they could pluck up courage to impose themselves on the rest of the gang.
This little bantam was a third the size of the White Sussex and her chicks were not much older than a few days. How would they cope?
I gingerly let them out of the box in the chicken run and the little bantams soon made themselves at home. The rest of the birds were wary at first but when one of my other chickens strayed too close for comfort, the new arrival flew at her and an almighty fight ensued. I managed to separate them but was worried that I had made the wrong choice – surely these little creatures would not survive long against their giant counterparts?
When I went down in the late afternoon to feed them, the chickens were very subdued and cautiously waddled around the side of the perimeter fence to get to the wheat, rather than cross the bantam’s path. Even Arthur the cockerel, undisputed champion cock of the valley, gave them a wide birth.
It would be interesting to see where they all slept at night so I went back down at dusk but there was no sign of the bantams in the hen-house. I could hear them though, and when I looked closely, there was mother, roosting high in the elder tree with her four little chicks snuggled down securely atop her back.
Somehow, I think they will do rather well

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 9:57 am and is filed under Down On The Farm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.