Freeholder
This too shall pass.
With a Porcelain d'Uccle?
I had mentioned to my friend that I wanted to check the feed stores and see if there were any Silkie chicks in the bins of mixed bantams (because they are such good broody hens). Told her how you can tell which chicks are Silkies (they have black skin, legs and beaks, five toes, and the beginnings of a top knot). So she texted me from one of the feed stores a few days later; she'd found some and did I want them? Yes, of course! So she picked up eleven white chicks. Brings them to me, and one isn't a Silkie. She'd grabbed a Porcelain d'Uccle chick by mistake. Pretty easy to tell those, too, if you know what you are looking at. Probably three to four weeks old now, still too young to tell if it's male or female. Won't keep it if it's a rooster (should be able to sell it in Craigslist). What I want to know is, is there any point keeping it if it's a hen? Are they good broody hens? Lay well for a bantam? Have any purpose in life other than being cute as the dickens? If I was deliberately getting d'Uccle chickens, I'd get Mille Fleurs, not the Porcelains. Right now, I have it and one of the Silkies in a tub next to me here in my office, to entertain my daughter, but they'll be too big for that soon. I have thought about keeping two or three of the tiny bantams as cage birds for her entertainment (she would love to have a parakeet, but our house gets too cold in the winter for those little guys), but chickens are so dusty.
Kathleen
I had mentioned to my friend that I wanted to check the feed stores and see if there were any Silkie chicks in the bins of mixed bantams (because they are such good broody hens). Told her how you can tell which chicks are Silkies (they have black skin, legs and beaks, five toes, and the beginnings of a top knot). So she texted me from one of the feed stores a few days later; she'd found some and did I want them? Yes, of course! So she picked up eleven white chicks. Brings them to me, and one isn't a Silkie. She'd grabbed a Porcelain d'Uccle chick by mistake. Pretty easy to tell those, too, if you know what you are looking at. Probably three to four weeks old now, still too young to tell if it's male or female. Won't keep it if it's a rooster (should be able to sell it in Craigslist). What I want to know is, is there any point keeping it if it's a hen? Are they good broody hens? Lay well for a bantam? Have any purpose in life other than being cute as the dickens? If I was deliberately getting d'Uccle chickens, I'd get Mille Fleurs, not the Porcelains. Right now, I have it and one of the Silkies in a tub next to me here in my office, to entertain my daughter, but they'll be too big for that soon. I have thought about keeping two or three of the tiny bantams as cage birds for her entertainment (she would love to have a parakeet, but our house gets too cold in the winter for those little guys), but chickens are so dusty.
Kathleen
