Can anyone help???

Hi All......... Just signed up and wanted to introduce myself.

I live in sunny Dorset (born and breed).
When we where growing up my Dad had a smallholding ( pigs, goats, sheep, cows horses etc oh and chickens! Chickens was my job and as child I loved it)!

Now I'm in my 40's issssssssssh I would like to keep bantams in my back garden! So my question is how would I go about this and which breed would be best???

Any advise/help would be greatly reviced.

I hope you all don't mind my question.

regards
Amanda :O)

Hi Amanda, welcome to the madhouse, sorry menat henhouse!!! lol  I'm not a keeper of Bantams, but they are ideal if your garden isn't very big.  Eggs will be smaller, but hey ho, you just eat twice as many!!!! lol

I think most of the pure breeds come in bantam size, so it depends what you want.  any particular colour?  I think the light Sussex Banty, nice and white with her black and grey collar look nice.

The very first thing to do is ring the council and ok it with them, might save a load of hassle later. You then need to decide how many and sort out a home for them. The rest pretty much works itself out!

I originally had the same plan, but personally have found that you have to be VERY patient if you want bantams! Although I think they are probably easier to get hold of in autumn. Not being very patient, I ended up getting mostly standard chickens, and have a couple of bantam buff rocks on order.

I found it all a bit frustrating actually, as I have read loads of books over the last few years (whilst persuading hubby to come round to the idea) and never saw any mention of difficulties getting bantams, particularly in the spring. It was only when I had the henhouse and actually tried to get some that I discovered the problem. Also, they seem to be mostly available in pure breeds, and a lot of breeders I contacted would only sell them in breeding pairs or trios - not much help if you only want hens!

Hope you manage to find what you want though

We have Naked Necks, Rhode Island Reds, Silkies and various Oriental Games all in bantam form. It seems the games are spotty layers as are the Silkies and the best layers are our Malay crossed with the Naked Necks and the RIRs taking a very close second place. All are very people friendly though and the Silkies are the best if you want a bird to cuddle. Plus they have the major cuteness factor going for them.