New here

[Anonymous]

Hello I'm new here. I used to have bantams in an urban garden as a child. It was quite unusual then, but is becoming much more common now. Now I am grown up and have children of my own - and guinea pigs and gerbils - but have only recently got bantams.We have Teazle, a partridge wyandotte and Bluebell, a blue barbu d'Anver - they are 15 weeks old, so not fully grown or laying yet. Then there is Clover, who is 3 weeks older - a gold laced orpington - a lovely looking bird, but SHE'S started crowing! Oh dear! We knew there was a chance of that, as the lady we got "her" from wasn't sure. At the time she said she would take him back if necessary, but it seems to be a different story now.... I have a pic of him in the sale section - I'm trying to find him a new home.

Jane.

 

[E3lx]

Hi,
welcome to the forum
so sorry to hear your ''hen'' is actually a cockerel 06 we have all had it havent we 12 .
If tthe person you bought the 'hen' from said she would take him back, then really she should. What do you mean it seems

but it seems to be a different story now....

? Have you actually asked her to take him back? :|

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I sent her an email and she replied saying she cant home him herself as she is "maxed out" with her own at the moment. I sent another email asking for clarification - maybe she can ask around and find a home for him elsewhere - but I haven't heard any more from her. She didn't claim to be an expert, so we knew there was a chance of it. I'm not familiar with orpingtons - their combs are quite small, and it didn't seem to show the cockerel behaviour I've seen in other youngsters. The lady knew we liked the bantam, as did she, and said that if we hadn't taken it she would have kept it herself. I didn't expect it to be a problem. She may well get in touch yet, but thought I ought to start looking for a home myself too.

 

[Tim]

Hello and a warm welcome!

Hmmm it's quite a common story. Breeders often don't want to take back cockerels - they usually have to kill them and if they swap them with a pullet, they have the cost of them to rear and (in fairness) there is very little money in poultry breeding on a small scale...

Sadly we get 50% cockerels and for every hen, there is of course a cockerel that is usually killed.

Hybrids are cheaper because many are autosexing which means you can tell the boys from the girls as day olds from their colouring / markings so you don't need to raise unwanted boys.

Tim

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, I can understand about cockerels. It's OK for farmers and breeders; it's just being a pet owner I'm a bit soft! It's not like I'm vegetarian, and I believe in good animal welfare. He's certainly had a good life,far better than most of the chickens we eat I expect. But I just couldn't eat an animal whose personality I knew!

It's just a shame when people say things then don't follow up. It would of course been lovely to have had hatching eggs, but the reason I didn't do this was because I knew I wouldn't want to have to deal with the cockerels.