• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

the Imperfectly Happy home

the Imperfectly Happy home

  • Start Here
  • Country Store
    • Seeds for Your Garden & Homestead
    • Shirts & Mugs for Homesteaders
    • Herbal Academy
    • Preferred CBD Oil
    • Meal Planning
    • Chickens
    • Kitchen
  • Home
    • Frugality
    • Vintage Skills
    • Prepping
    • DIY
    • Health & Wellness
  • Recipes
  • Homesteading
    • Homesteading
    • Gardening
    • Backyard Livestock
    • Chickens
    • Meat Rabbits

What Is a Bantam Chicken?

October 27, 2021 by Tiffany Davis Leave a Comment

The bantam chicken is a popular breed of chicken known for its relatively small size. While some chickens are naturally giant, these chickens are considerably smaller. Despite their small size, there is much to love about these chickens, including their temperament and ability to lay dozens of eggs in a year.

What Is a Bantam Chicken? Booted Bantam

If you’re thinking about getting chickens to raise on your land, it’s good to know more about this type of chicken to decide if it is the right breed for you.

Egg Production in Bantam Chickens

Although these chickens are smaller than other breeds, they still have much to offer. Some of them can lay up to 200 eggs per year. So if you have multiple bantam chickens living on your land, you’ll have hundreds of eggs available to you at any moment.

It’s important to know that there are different breeds of bantam chickens, some of which will lay more eggs than the others. While some lay as little as 50 eggs per year, these animals are still great to have living on your land.

The eggs produced by these chickens often have a slight cream-colored tint to them. Every once in a while, however, you may notice eggs with beautiful colors on them. Although it doesn’t happen too often, it’s such an exciting thing to see because the eggs look stunning and come in assorted colors when you least expect it to happen.

Bantam hen eggs will be smaller in size to the average laying hen’s eggs.

Bantam Chicken - Egg size comparison

The Temperament of Bantam Chickens

When you’re looking for friendly chickens to bring over to your land, bantam chickens are an excellent choice. You may already know that some of these animals don’t have the best temperaments and are often difficult to handle, but that isn’t the case with this wonderful breed. Rather than being aggressive and causing you more work, these animals have a friendly demeanor.

The reason behind their good behavior is that they’ve been bred as companion chickens for decades. People love having this breed on their land because the animals enjoy handling and aren’t aggressive, making them an excellent choice for children. If you have children that will care for these animals with you, selecting the right breed is a must. You don’t want to choose a breed that will be too aggressive and rough towards the children because that could result in injury.

The Appearance of the Bantam Chickens

While males and females don’t look too different, the male bantam chickens are always a bit larger than the females. It’s easy to tell them apart because of their size, along with the long tail feather that the roosters have. 

These tail feathers look beautiful and are easy to spot from a mile away. So, if you’re trying to determine which ones are female and which ones are males, look at the size and the feathers attached to the chickens to figure it out within seconds.

The female bantam chickens don’t have such long feathers. Instead, their feathers are shorter and aren’t nearly as noticeable. Because of the recognizable differences, you won’t have to worry about any confusion when separating hens from roosters if you need to do so.

Sebright Bantam Chicken

Breeds of Bantam Chickens

There are over 400 variety of birds that are considered bantams. Here are few of the most popular bantam chicken breeds:

  • Silkie Chickens
  • Belgian d’Uccle Bantam
  • Japanese Bantam
  • Sebright
  • Serama or Malaysian Serama
  • Booted Bantam

What to Feed These Chickens When They’re Living on Your Land

Knowing what to feed these chickens is essential. First, you want to make sure they’re well-fed and taken care of while you’re handling them. Although pellets are a good source of feed for these animals, you have plenty of other options when feeding them. These are a few of the best foods to feed your chickens:

  • Spinach. Chickens enjoy the taste of spinach. You can buy bags of spinach and offer it as a treat for good behavior.
  • Kale. Providing these animals with kale is an excellent way to give them a treat while making sure they’re getting enough calcium to stay strong and healthy.
  • Watermelon. Hens and roosters enjoy the refreshing taste of fresh watermelon. You can buy it in bulk, slice it down, and serve it to these incredible creatures.
  • Broccoli. If you have some leftover broccoli that you’re not eating, give it to your chickens. They’ll enjoy the fresh vegetables. Most importantly, it contains vitamins and nutrients that are good for these animals.

While these are a few of the top foods to provide your bantam chickens with when feeding them on your land, several other options are ideal, including blueberries, lettuce, beets, and squash. Of course, when offering these kinds of treats, make sure to do so in moderation. While the hens and roosters love them, you don’t want them to become overweight from overeating the food you provide.

Creating the Perfect Chicken Coop for the Animals

If you’re going to bring bantam chickens to your land and provide them with the care they need, be sure to create a coop that offers enough space to keep them comfortable. The goal is to give each chicken plenty of room to move around and explore outside without living in cramped, uncomfortable quarters. When living in cramped quarters, it’s easy for chickens to become stressed, which could negatively impact their egg production.

In addition to providing enough space for the hens and roosters to live comfortably and roam around freely to stay busy, be sure to choose the right bedding. You can pick from several types of bedding, such as straw, sand, and even recycled paper. Choose what you believe will work best for your chickens without causing you to go over your budget. You might also want to experiment with different materials to see which ones are best for your chicken coop.

Bring Bantam Chickens to Live on Your Land

Whether you’ve had chickens before or are new to owning them, bantam breeds are an excellent choice for several reasons. First, these friendly, small animals are easier to handle and are kid-friendly.

In addition, their kind temperament and small size make them a superb selection for anyone with a bit of land looking to raise these fantastic creatures while providing them with the best care possible. You won’t regret the decision to get bantam chickens.

More on Chickens

Chicken Worms and Natural Deworming Tips
Largest Chicken Breeds
How to Buy Chickens Online
20 Chicken Toys You Can Buy or DIY
Backyard Chickens 101

  • Tweet

Related posts:

How to fight your HOA for backyard chickens, can it be done? Over the last few years the idea of having a few hens in the backyard for eggs and pest control has become a popular concept. It makes sense really, when you consider that people in the city often kept chickens and had a kitchen garden. In fact during the 2 world wars governments encouraged people to keep meat rabbits, chickens and have a "victory" garden that they canned from. But somewhere along the way to progress and modernization we lost the commonsense of self-sufficiency. But I digress... If you're reading this article than you've probably already decided that backyard chickens are a good idea; you just need to fight your hoa for backyard chickens! Awhile back a wrote about keeping a secret chicken coop with Secret Backyard Chickens; and even if you aren't keeping them secret there are helpful tips your neighbors will appreciate. However, I realize that trying to keep a secret that is out in the open isn't easy and not everyone is comfortable. So let's talk ways you can stay in your HOA home and keep chickens! How to Fight Your HOA for Backyard ChickensFight Your HOA for Backyard Chickens Your Guide to the Best Chicken Nesting Boxes Backyard Chickens 101 Largest Chicken Breeds

Filed Under: Chickens, Homesteading Tagged With: backyard chickens, bantam chickens, small chicken breeds

Previous Post: « Is It Too Late to Start Prepping?
Next Post: How to Cook Without Electricity »

Primary Sidebar

Trending Now

Topics

Footer

—————————————

Advertising

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a CafeMedia (“CafeMedia”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and CafeMedia will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about CafeMedia’s data usage, click here: www.cafemedia.com/publisher-advertising-privacy-policy

Amazon Associates Disclosure

The Imperfectly Happy Home is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com

Privacy, Disclaimers & Compensation

See Terms of Use

Convert Kit

The Secrets to Vegetable Gardening

My 5 Must Know Gardening Secrets!

    We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
    Built with ConvertKit

    Copyright © 2023 · Midnight theme