Meet the Minis

I love having a new little flock of mini, bantam chickens, but sadly they are moving to a friend’s house in the next couple of weeks. My landlord is uneasy with me being over the city limit of chickens and my attempts to persuade her otherwise have failed. Although I am not naming the little girls, I wanted you to still meet them before they leave!

Going in the pecking order, we begin at the top with a Blue-Red Old English bantam. She was the one I decided on last, purely because of her looks. She is a yearling hen who apparently loves to be a mother. Most likely, there will be some battles with broodiness on the horizon as she adjusts to being a city chicken. No more babies for her – just mini eggs in her future. She has beautiful coloring, but is also the most skittish of humans, making it difficult to capture her loveliness.

Next in line, holding her own in the middle of the pecking order, is a White Leghorn. She looks exactly like the standard breed version, just miniturized. This bantam breed, like the standard, is suppose to be an excellent egg-layer.

And finally, we come to our favorite wounded bird. This little girl is a Black-Tailed Buff Dutch. Her head looks much better now, but you can see in this picture what it looked like a couple days after her attack. She now has spiky new feathers growing in and the wound has completely healed over.

I have been surprised at how quiet these birds are compared to my larger gals. Perhaps they are still getting adjusted to their new surroundings, or maybe it is because no one has laid an egg yet. My standard flock tends to make some noise in the morning as the sun comes up and squawk a bit when they lay eggs. These girls quietly cluck, scrape the ground for bugs, and take leisurely dust baths. They seem very calm and sweet and I hate to see them go.