First off, sorry I’ve been away. It’s been crazy with everything going on, I’ve been sick, traveling etc. Just no time.

Let me try to catch up from nearly a month ago when I was on my way to the ECBBA Chicken Show down in Camden SC. I went, I took Napoleon and Tiffany. Tiffany did pretty well, Napoleon not so well but he’s young still. Vicky, shown above, won Best Serama with her very pretty KIOTI won. He apparently won at the Oct 25th Morganton show which I wasn’t able to attend as well.

I got Bobwhite quail and Ringneck Pheasant at the show too but I’ll talk about that later. For now, enjoy some pictures from the show. It was a Bantam show so everything shown is a bantam (means smaller than standard size chicken). All of the pictures were taken with my phone so excuse the poor quality.

This is a bantam Appenzeller I just thought was very cool looking.

Here is one of the most interesting birds I saw at the show, Modern Game. One similar to the black hen below won Best in Show.

A Feather Foot bantam.

A black cochin. These things really just looked like big fluff balls.

And Napoleon, my very own Serama.

Aster is a Golden Campine and according to Henderson’s Breed Chart that means that:

• She’s early feathering – TRUE
• She’s late maturing – TRUE
• She lays white eggs – TRUE
• She lays Medium sized eggs – FALSE

I’m not sure if our other chickens just haven’t found their groove yet but Aster is by far laying the largest eggs we have yet. And she’s relatively small. Quite a bit smaller than Teresa and Julian, our Barred Rocks, enormously smaller than Meg, our Cochin, who’s size is likely 99% feathers but still.

If they all start to lay eggs the same size or bigger than Aster’s we’ll have some fantastic eggs. She laid her first one on Monday and we got the second yesterday – it was noticably larger than the first which had been our biggest to date.

I’ve changed around their diet some to make sure they are getting the proper nutrients and calcium (for eggs) but no hormones. We’ll see if that makes any noticable difference in egg size and production.

On a side note, I’ll be heading to the ECBBA Show in Camden SC on October 4th. I’ll be showing a couple of my Serama, though I haven’t decided which ones yet except for Valentino – although his sickle feathers haven’t come in yet. I guess I’ll just hope for the best.

Update: When I registered for the show I had to say who was going so, Valentino is going. Napoleon is going (I’m pretty sure I like him a lot more than anyone else will) and Cleopatra is going (She’s Valentinos main girl, no picture of her yet).

This is Vicki (or Vicky not sure of spelling) and a friend Eric. I didn’t manage a picture of Luann who actually gave Eric and I the Serama for us to get started. Luann is a breeder of Serama down in Greer SC. I got in contact with her and she got me excited about Serama and breeding them. Vicki is a fellow breeder outside Columbia SC who has been working with Luann for a while and is removing some of her stock so Luann can focus on Silkie Feathered Serama.

Anyway, this past Saturday Eric and I made the drive down to Greer and picked out a few Serama for our new breeding projects. I’ve shown you some pictures already. I’m working on a Mille Fleur and Dun project, Valentino is my rooster for the Dun breeding project. Eric is taking on Black, Mottled and Dun. If possible, I think I’ll add Black into my mix as soon as possible, because I easily have the space and Luann has good stock thats making some great progress as far as breeding true.

I’m sold on Serama now though. They are an absolute blast. Small, but proud little birds and very friendly as well. If you’re interested in Serama, I should have pet quality birds available by the end of the year. That’ll be the ones that aren’t quite good enough to breed but will certainly make great pets.They take up nearly no space, are too small to dig up mulch really but still eat bugs.

This is Valentino my new Dun Serama Rooster. Dun is the name of the coloration he has. Dun is more of washing out any other color. So you have duller, more muted colors which can be very cool for the right look. 

I’m going to be breeding this guy and if his tail feathers grow back in time I’ll be taking him to a show soon.

So this weekend I got Seramas. (If you don’t know, Serama are said to be the worlds smallest breed of chicken.) All of them were aquired for specific breeding projects (Mille Fluer and Dun) except this fella who I just had to have when I saw him. I met someone on a the BYC board who is a Serama breeder and she was kind enough to get me started with breeding. She gave a friend and me several birds to get to going. Since I’m such a huge fan of Mille Fleur as a pattern I had to work on that pattern, and she had some gorgeous Dun birds I simply couldn’t pass up.

Anyway, this guy is named Napoleon. Because he’s tiny with huge attitude. His mottling is fantastic in my opinion. I just really love the way he looks. He’s young, around 4-5 months so one of the older hens I got tried to bully him around some. He had nothing of it. He dove in and showed that girl who was boss right away. He weighs in at a grand 8.5ozs. I don’t expect him to get much bigger which makes him in the smallest class of Serama.

We’ve been keeping him inside with us a lot because he wasn’t too tame yet and I’m hoping to show him this winter if he fills in early enough.

He started to really calm down eventually even fell asleep in my hands.

I’m going to give him a little time before I breed him. He’s given me reason to think he might not quite be genetically healthy, but he’s still my favorite right now.

Last time I posted about chickens not getting busy and laying eggs a couple of more got started a day or two later. So now I’m going to see if I can have the same luck again!

Camellia here, along with her fellow Buff Orpingtons, Cindy and Beth are not laying yet. I’m really excited for them to start I’ve heard they lay some of the biggest eggs of any breed. She’s looking old enough – all the Buff Orpingtons have gone through a bit of a change in feathering lately, they’ve gone from being more of a gold color to a pale yellow on their bodies while keeping the gold on their head and necks. They’re wattles are starting to get more red and their combs are growing quite a bit.

I think they must be close to laying. At least I want them to be.

We’ve had so much rain and Buttercup hasn’t been enjoying it.

We have a family of deer that live in the woods that surround us. I’ve been trying to get a better picture but this girl spooks so easily I haven’t been able.

The chickens really seem to like her though. As she walks along the back of the fence the chickens follow. If some of them have escaped the pen they’ll zip around her feet like cats do so often to us. A noticable difference though is I don’t think the deer cares if it steps on a chicken – its just concerned with going where ever it goes.

These deer are beautiful. Too bad they insist on eating my tomato plants.

When we got our chickens so long ago Buttercup here was supposed to be a Buff Laced Polish. But she was the wrong color. Off white, with no lacing. Our Laced Wyandotte’s started to show closer to adult colors pretty early. But not Buttercup. Until recently I was wondering if her lacing would ever really look right.

Now she looks nice though. The lacing is really nice on her tan feathers. Even the afro is laced.