Daily Celestial Challenge, Tuesday AnimalKingdom: Meet Buffy the Feisty, Bantam Araucana
Buffy is another chicken that came to us somewhat by accident.
Buffy
I'd hatched a mixture of purebred fertile eggs. They were supposed to be just barnevelders, but the seller’s hens had gone broody so she didn't have enough and we ended up with australorp, speckled Sussex and wyandotte too. Of those three extra breeds we only got one female from each, so I had a load of purebred roosters and decided to see if there were any interested buyers.
I got an interesting call from a lady interested in the speckled Sussex boys. She was incredibly chatty and asked if there was a particular breed I was looking for. I wasn't planning on any more hens at the time, but she weedled out of me the fact that I wanted a blue egg layer at some point. It seemed that would be perfect as she had an araucana hen and would I like to trade?! I found myself reluctantly agreeing and the deal was struck. Then I spent the next few days worrying, because I try to avoid bringing adult hens into the flock for fear of what they might bring with them.
D-Day came and this hyperactive lady came with a stumpy little araucana bantam assuring us that she was flighty, a pain to catch, didn't like being handled and would escape at the first opportunity! The lady adored the speckled Sussex boys and paid us for the second one as well, even though I thought we were doing a straight swap. Once the human whirlwind had left, I tried to gather my thoughts together and figure out what to do with this little araucana bantam. She hadn't mentioned it was a bantam on the phone and I only had large fowl at this point. With the warnings of her being flighty going round my head and worrying that she'd get pummelled by my big girls I was, at least, relieved we had finished the first enclosed run and that the flock in there didn't have our big rooster Roast, who could have flattened her.
Our flocks are fairly gentle so, as it happened, it only took her about a week to settle in and we discovered she was actually quite a sweet natured little thing. As long as you approached her slowly you could pick her up and give her a cuddle. She did bring a nice dose of roundworm and lice with her, but the flock was due for some treatment now that we'd blocked the wild birds from coming into the run and wouldn't have them bringing these parasites so much.
Buffy's head may only just reach the back of our big australorp, but she's still her boss!
These days, despite her diminutive size, Buffy isn't at the bottom of the pecking order and will boss hens around who are twice her size! She tends towards being broody and will lay only so many green/blue eggs before she goes into hatch mode and sits on them. So this year she has finally had the chance to become a mamma and hatch some eggs. She even took on five extra incubator hatched ones which you can read about here.
Motherhood comes naturally to her!
We recently let her out into the main run with her babies. The rest of the flock didn't really bother the chicks, but Buffy tried to take them all on anyway and I ended up having to rescue her from beneath the three top hens! Don't worry, she was unharmed! They are all still running together as a flock and the rooster, Zeus, breaks up the fights before they get out of hand now.
This post was inspired by @sirknight’s Daily Celestial Challenge
You can also read about:
Ginger the Golden Legbar
and Roast the Urban Rooster
OMG minismallholding - this Knight reckons that Buffy has more than earned her keep for her lifetime!
🤣 She really is a supermamma!
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I have some darling lavendar cochin bantams, and they are as sweet as can be. I'd love to have a bantam blue egg layer and she is just my color! What roo do you have in with her? Maybe you'd want to sell some of her fertile eggs one day? I'm following now, by the way.
Are they the ones also known as pekin bantams? They are just the cutest! A friend has a frizzled one who is possibly the sweetest thing going!!
I have a splash araucana rooster in with Buffy He's standard breed, but they are fairly small anyway. I think he's also a bit smaller than average too. He's the chicken in my profile picture. 😁
Buffy tends to only lay about a dozen eggs before she goes broody again, so it would be hard to get enough together to sell. I've sold day olds from crosses sired by the araucana rooster; Easter Eggers. I was thinking of offering up fertile eggs after Christmas too. I'd probably have to mix Buffy's with the other bantam eggs to be able to make up a dozen though as. She's my only female araucana in that flock, so by the time I get a dozen from her the first ones will be at least two weeks old and she'll probably have gone broody again! 😆
Hola @minismallholding felicitación por excelente post, orgulloso de pertenecer a la misma familia steemians saludos y mucho éxito de mi parte @juan24
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STOPBuffy is gorgeous! I had a chicken named Buffy who turned out to be Angel, he was pretty good looking too :)
Buffy seems to be suited to chickens, as I've come across a few now, male and female. 😁
Aww what a nice little flock of chicklings. I like Buffy
Thank you
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They are all so very beautiful! What a lovely breed Buffy is.
Thank you. She makes me grateful for accidental acquisitions!
@minismallholding nice chickens, take care of them!!
I also had pair of chicks of different colors but unfortunately due to irresponsible behavior from my brother side the chick were hunted down by some cats, I was so angry on my brother for that act!
chicks were really adorable :(
I'm so sorry to hear. We get a lot of cats here, so we keep them fully enclosed. The cats often watch the quails in their run too.