Golden Sebright chicks

It's a funny thing, I saw these Golden Sebright chicks coming up for sale and looked up the breed online and they were just so beautiful.  So I ordered them.  Then I did a bit more research (like some, at all) and found out that these are pretty unusual chickens.  They are the experiment, or perhaps art, of one of the Britain's greatest breeders, Sir John Saunders Sebright, 7th Baronet. Sebright chicken (Wikipedia)

The thing is, they only lay 50-70 eggs a year, and they're bantams so there's no point in eating them, they're just very very pretty.  From the POV of homesteading there are better breeds.  But it's too late.  I got 'em and I love 'em already.  They're my little "tiger birds"!  I call them that not just because of their color scheme, but also because they are carnivorous lil bastards.  But I'm getting ahead of the story.

I got them when they were just 3-4 days old.  I had them on paper towels for the first couple of days, and then I put a little pile of sand in with them. From that point on they only hung out in the sand.  They also ate a bunch of it! (Which is okay, it's grit, eh?) They didn't explode or turn inside-out, but after that they ignored the feeder.  They literally would not touch it, they only wanted to forage in the sand.  So I switched out the paper towels for sand and they seemed really happy.  And no more poop on their feet. Totally clean feet!  Any poop that hit the sand got covered and became indistinguishable from any other lil glob of sand.  It worked really well.

Once they got some sand in them they lost all interest in their chick crumble.  I gave them some young bugs and they went nuts. I tried several other chick feeds and treats and they're really only interested in bugs.  They mostly ignore veggies.  I was worried about feeding them weird stuff too early, but they seem fine.  It seems to me that Old Sebright knew what he was doing and he bred these birds to be nearly as tough and ready as any wild jungle fowl.  Not only are they only interested in foraging (I eventually took the feeder out, it was just taking up room) and they only really relish bugs, but they are flyers.  Not only can they fly, but they like to fly.  Already at five days they were sailing back and forth and jumping up four or five times their height to roost on the walls of the brooder.  They're also fearless, although wary.  They don't like to cuddle but if I sit close to the brooder they'll come up and hang out with me, and sometimes jump/fly onto my shoulder.

All in all, they are tough, beautiful little velociraptors.

They have an interesting history, what is their life span?
Do you plan to try and breed them?

Oh hey, I didn't notice your reply here until now.

I think their lifespan is about the same as other chickens, at least I haven't read anything that mentions otherwise.

They are said to be hard to breed, they only lay 50-70 eggs per year, they don't really get broody, and the chicks have a high mortality rate.

But I suspect that Old Sebright bred these birds not just for looks but for behaviour as well.  They are are not barnyard chickens, they're jungle fowl.  They fly.   I think you need an aviary, not a coop, to grow these birds, they'll do well if they have enough space.  Sebright was an aristocrat, yeah?, and I think he bred these as aristocrat's birds.  They would have had a lot of room, I'm guessing?  That's my theory and I'm sticking to it: their rep for being hard to breed is due to people trying to raise them as chickens rather than parrots or something, eh?

Honestly though, if it turns out they're truly just bad at reproducing then I'm not getting more.  I love these lil tiger birds but I'm not "in love" with them.  

In Permie terms they will e.g. eat bugs and poop and all the good chicken things, plus I hope to use them as a kind of watchdog.  They're really smart and perceptive for chickens.  Other than that they're just really pretty.

This is them a couple of days ago.  Their feathers are filling in and they like to roost now.

How cool! And such striking birds! I recently ran across the concept of the "chicken moat" and it seems like these foraging little guys might be ideal for that use. That is,  if you can give them enough space inside the "moat" .....in the kind of clever but unrealistically romantic way I imagine an aristocratic bird breeder might approach housing his birds while protecting his kitchen gardens.

Ah, Chicken Moat!  Thank you!  That's exactly what I'm planning to do with them.  In Permaculture terms they're going to live in Zone 2 or even Zone 3, yeah, as a kind of watchdog.  (I have a lil theory that it's easier to train an AI to recognize chicken behaviour than to understand human intentions.  The chickens will be kind of like a sensor system for the AI watchdog system.)  I figure that they'll naturally "patrol" a ring-shaped region over the course of the day, and they're smart enough to be trained to move on at a given signal.  (The thought occurs: they're chickens, all you need to do to get them to move on is drop a peck of scratch in the spot you want them to go to, eh?)

There's a lot going on in this photo, I'll break it down.  This is the
temporary brooder set up in a corner of my room (all cleared out because
I'm packing up to go to Green Hills.)  You can see it's divided into two
sections.  The smaller section on the lower left with the little hillock
in it is for the Golden Sebrights, and the larger pen is for the Azure
Eggers (you can just see a couple of them over the edge of the plastic
tarp.)

In the lower left corner of the image there are three Sebrights napping
on the edge of the cardboard box!  They like it.  I don't understand how
it works, I know there is some special roosting ability in chicken legs,
but it's impressive.  I couldn't nap sitting on a fence.

I put several different roosts along the edge of the brooder: a paper
towel tube cut and rolled a little tighter/smaller than normal with a
paper towel around it to offer traction; a length of stick; and a wooden
paint stirrer (never used on paint, I mixed soil with it.)  Still, they
like just the edge of cardboard.

In the back in the corner is the box that the eggers sleep in at night,
and on the right you can see the prototype of my simple computer system
that I'm building.  I have since had to cover that up, the eggers started
jumping up there.  It's incredible how fast chickens grow.  Each day they
seem to "level up" and are ready for new things.  I can't wait to get
them up to the land and let them run around (inside their respective
runs, of course.)

That reminds me, having the two flocks next to each other like this
should hopefully let them get used to each other as kids, and curtail
inter-flock aggression when they grow up.  The Sebrights are about twice
as old as the eggers now, but they're bantam so the eggers are already a
little larger, and much heavier.  The Sebrights mostly ignore the eggers,
who, frankly, are obnoxiously frightened of me and them and everything
that isn't clearly food.  Once in awhile one of the eggers will jump up
onto the roost and then look around nervously at the Sebrights, who look
back like, "Uh-huh, now what?"

This morning a couple of the birds wanted to know what I was doing on the computer.

Flock Sebright roosting on the handrail of the porch of the decrepit mobile home.

They're coming up on four months old.  THe roosters have the characteristic single point on their wattles, the rest of the wattle is starting to get all Klingon-forehead!

Those are gorgeous birds! I love the gold and black color pattern.
Sebrights have been popular lately for all the reasons critters typically go popular with the crowd - cute, small, interesting colors, and always there's some behavior that some people think is cute in a chick but will have them ripping their hair out later.

They should do you well. Yes, they were intended as garden ornaments by a guy who was very active in the chicken world. They should be premier hunters for you, leaving you with a ring of death around your garden. A "None Shall Pass" zone.

The reason they're considered to be "difficult breeders" is because they are very active little guys, non-setters, and tiny. They lay infrequently and, while their roo will be a wonderful protective little Klingon, he will be stand-off-ish by not setting the nest. Like most roos, actually, but some roos will and they seem to have people thinking that more roos should.

I have a fondness for the Silver Sebrights because they look like coloring book pages brought to life. I don't have any, and probably won't ever, but they are charming.

That comb is a hoot! Your roo is definitely channeling his inner Klingon. The girls should be right behind him, though. I hope his crow is more of a challenge than the tiny trumpet I have in my imagination.

Cheers Kristine!

Yeah, if I had done my homework I might not have gotten them at all, but I'm glad I did.  They are really cute and lively.

The roo is very very loud.  You wouldn't think such a small creature could make such a loud noise!

I'll try to post more photos soon!

A friend of mine bought a pair of Seabright hens. Quite unexpectedly, the Silver one actually went broody, but only stuck to the job when put in "protective custody" - she could hear her sister and and the non-Seabright mate, but couldn't wander off and she hatched 2 chicks and did a fine job of mothering them. Unfortunately they were both males and my friend already has at least one male too many... so they had to be culled.

So it *can* happen, but you'd have to be watching and recognize the early behaviors and act accordingly.  That said, if you're happy with the breed, you could see if you can get a couple of banties that are *known* to have broody tendencies. That way, when they go broody, you can give them fertile eggs and they will do the work. That's way better than incubator hatched and raised without maternal (and to some degree, paternal) influences.

A quality banty can be given 3-4 "regular" chicken eggs and do a fine job hatching and raising them also. Two of my friend's banties of other breeds have hatched a total of 6 regular chicks for me this year, who are now living with Miss Dickens as a "surrogate Auntie".

Miss Dickens is an ISA brown from Hubby's egg business who for some reason was being hassled by her flock, so first she went to live with the ducks (yeah - chicken that lives with Ducks is a "Dicken") I knew she needed some chicken company, so first moved her in with the two oldest chicks and then we added the 4 younger ones and it's working out well enough...

Considering the concerns I'm hearing about increases in ticks in a number of regions, independent birds that can patrol your land consuming insects sounds like a good plan.

Yeah I figured that I would leave breeding up to them, and if I ever found an egg I could slip it under one of the broody eggers.  I wonder how the Sebright breeders do it?

And yeah, having them out on tick patrol would be awesome.  So far no sign of ticks (something about the elevation?  I dunno) but still I like the idea of the chickens having a useful role to play.  I mean, they are gorgeous, and that's enough, but it's also cool if they help out.

Pretty much any commercial hatchery will use incubators. That way your hens will keep laying.
Selling chicks is better return on investment than selling eggs, but there are never any guarantees in anything.
Even 50 eggs a year, considering it's probably heavily seasonal, means you'd get the bulk of them in the spring. Put them all in an incubator and hatch out a tiny chicken army!
Instead of about an egg a week, more or less, I would think you'd end up with a spring flush of 45 eggs in March (or whenever your egg season starts off), and then a tapering away of laying enthusiasm. They would be more likely to go broody at the tail end of that, too.

If you're just adding to your own flock or trying to select for broody birds, you'd do better to go out of your way to encourage setting or find a way to mark the hens and their eggs. If you don't care to do the work (and it's a LOT of work) and would rather just enjoy your interesting and entertaining flock, then do whatever you want. I mean, do what you want either way, but encouraging a broody to set her own eggs will, over time, give you broodier chickens. You have to be willing to select for that trait, though.

I love the idea of the Death Moat. The chickens would love it, you wouldn't have to wonder if they were useful because you'd be able to see the presence or lack of presence of insects in your garden, and you still get to enjoy them. Being tiny chickens, I wouldn't put them on tick patrol unless you had some sort of overhead cover that would move with them. Free ranging would, in my opinion, be right out.

Since ticks prefer high grass or shrubbery from which to jump out at people, keeping your grass cut and trimming up your shrubs (and wearing long pants and long sleeves, doing a tick check daily, etc.) goes a long way to preventing tick bites. If you're doing basic preventive stuff and doing tick checks on you and beloved pets, you're doing everything right. No worries.
I would always keep a small container of isopropyl alcohol around for when I checked my dogs and cat. After pulling the tick, it gets dropped in the container. The wound gets treated with a spot of triple antibiotic or whatever your wound care choice is, then move on. At the end of tick season, I was able to see how many of the little suckers I had managed to spot and treat. That's the only way I know it's a Bad Tick Year. I haven't seen any ticks here so far this year.

My sister recorded a video of herself hand-feeding some cucumber to the Flock Sebright.

movies Sebrights 001

@Kristine

> incubators

Of course!  (I feel foolish now.)

I'm not going to do anything special to breed the Sebrights.  If they manage to lay eggs and there's a broody egger I'll try putting them under her.

I love the Sebrights so much, they are so je ne sais quoi, but they really are ornamental (as contrasted with layers or meat birds) and I don't particularly need more of them.

> I love the idea of the Death Moat. The chickens would love it, you wouldn't have to wonder if they were useful because you'd be able to see the presence or lack of presence of insects in your garden, and you still get to enjoy them. Being tiny chickens, I wouldn't put them on tick patrol unless you had some sort of overhead cover that would move with them. Free ranging would, in my opinion, be right out.

I love it too.  They're definitely way more into bugs than veggies or crumble.  I'm not going to let them free range, but they will eventually have an coup as large as a tennis court with a whole tree inside.
(Geodesic dome for the win!)

Excellent advice on ticks, cheers!

Good news, bad news, news?

The Sebrights laid an egg!  But they ate it!  (Nature you scary.)

I feel elated that they laid the egg, devastated that they ate it, a little relieved that I don't have to deal with it at the moment, and anxious to build them nesting boxes (and maybe an incubator!?)

I'm going to build a nesting box for them, increase the protein in their diet (more bugs), add one of those decoy ceramic eggs to their run.  Hopefully when they lay more they won't eat them.

Is it too late?  Are they forever egg-eaters now?

If you build them a nice, dark, enclosed nesting area, there's a good chance they won't continue to eat eggs. "Practice" eggs may be a bit of a surprise and if it got pecked, damaging it, then hens will eat it, however, we've had that happen many times and not ended up with "egg eaters". Egg eating is more likely to happen with bored birds, birds that simply can't get enough to eat, or a bird that is being denied access to feed by a more aggressive bird. This is why having your morning tea where you can watch your flock at least a couple of times/week, is a real asset to flock management.

It may not be the protein they're after, but the calcium. My chicken flocks have access to crushed oyster shell in a container separate from their feed. Many people cook, crush and feed eggshells back to their birds.

I don't know about your ecosystem, but where I am, this wouldn't be the best time of year to try incubating and raising chicks if you don't have to. My Muscovy have stopped laying entirely. The one girl that insisted she was broody, changed her mind as soon as I gave her eggs. I've still got 2 girls expecting (tomorrow and mid-next week) and I'm *truly* hoping that will be the end of it for this year!!!

Thanks Jay, I appreciate the the advice.  I think I have some crushed oyster shell around from the last time I tried to raise chickens (the Lady's Detective Agency).  It doesn't go bad eh?

Do you know if the nesting box should be raised?  It seems like most of them are at least waist height.

It really surprised me.  I thought it would be another month or more before anybody started laying eggs.  And maybe not until spring.  There was one hen who was reticent about coming out of the coup with the others, but I guessed that the others were bullying her maybe (but I didn't actually see it happening) and now I'm guessing she was/is broody?

I have some pretty strong opinions about nest boxes... so please take what you want, as these are *my* preferences!
1. Nest boxes should be easy to get out of the coop and easy to disassemble for cleaning. Mites tend to like nest boxes, and the best way to discourage them is a good cleaning with a tiny bit of soap and lots of water, and then a light dusting with diatomaceous earth.
2. Nest boxes should be deep (mine are 14" deep, but ~12" wide). Chickens like to lay in privacy, and sometimes they like to all jam in together, so deep gives "options".
3. Nest boxes should be lower than the perches, so birds don't use them as perches. However, my old bones appreciate that most of my chicken ones are about 20" off the ground. (ducks are another matter!)
4. I prefer to have a good lip at the front to help keep the bedding in the box.
5. Since most of my chickens are in portable shelters, I try to construct *really* light weight nest boxes that hang on the portable structure and move with it.

Learning to lay is a big change in a chicken's life. Dawdling over laying an egg doesn't mean she's "broody". Some birds lay reliably early in the morning, but others lay later and many are on more like a 26 hour schedule, so their lay time shifts gradually for a week or two, and then they often take one day off, and start again. I've got one chicken who seems to be laying every second day in the afternoon.

A broody chicken will stay on the nest so long as there's an egg (real or fake - golf balls make great small eggs!) and may even stay if you take the eggs. They get a "broody look" to them, but I'm not sure how to describe it. A broody chicken will tend to *always* use the same nest box, but non-broodies can have their preferences also.

Simon Foreman wrote:Do you know if the nesting box should be raised?  It seems like most of them are at least waist height.

My nesting boxes are on the ground. Since that's where my chickens spend most of their time, it's not a problem.
Many nesting boxes are raised in some sort of structure, or meant to be mounted on the wall, or built-ins on a raised floor coop for conservation of space. People who have trouble bending over or crawling around on would probably prefer the raised ones. Chickens don't really seem to have a preference aside from individuals having Definite Opinions(tm).
As far as nesting box placement, do whatever is best for you and your birds.

I prefer to go upsize - the larger the better. The chickens seem to agree, aside from the ones that overload the repurposed cat litter box. Chickens just gotta chicken.
So, use what's easiest and cheapest for you. As long as the chickens like the space, they'll use it. If they don't like it, they'll let you know. It means that you might have a bit of an egg hunt until they get used to using their preferred nest boxes of the choices that you offer. Keeps life interesting. They will change their minds and make decisions that make no sense.

I have a hen who, after 3 years of laying in the A-frame in a nest box like she usually does, has taken to hiding behind some boxes on the back porch. It's in the shade; there's a nice breeze; she's safe from predators, ... it has a lot going for it. I understand her decision, but it's a sudden change so I'm trying to figure out what might be happening in flock dynamics that encouraged her to make a change. Or she's just being a chicken. Who knows?

You do want their roosting space to be more inviting than sleeping in the nesting boxes would be - nice, higher-than-the-box roosts will generally take care of that.

Find something you like to provide a layer between the chicken and the bare surface of your nesting boxes. Dried grass, straw, pine needles, dry leaves, wood shavings, ... the list is immense and only limited by your imagination. There are manufactured "nest box liners" that are either variations on plastic grass or paper/straw formed into sheets, cups, or "leaves".  You could use shredded paper, or a combination of things depending on what you have access to.

Chickens are pretty flexible and easy to care for, over all. They aren't picky about a lot of things, so there's a lot of multiple choice decisions you get to make. It's all good.  You got this!

Thank you for all the advice and support!  I really appreciate it!

I found another egg today, undamaged!  Whew!

It was just laying there on the floor of the run.  The birds seemed to be ignoring it.  It was already dry and cool to the touch so it must have been there for at least a little while, eh?  I'm guessing that they come out at chicken body temp?  Like I said, no one seemed to be paying the egg any attention.  I gave it to the cat to guard for the moment.

I wasn't sure what to do with it.  The obvious thing to do would be to make a tiny omelette, but I feel really weird about eating this egg.  I'm assuming it's viable.  It's a very centering and sobering feeling to have this living "unit" in my care, it feels like a huge responsibility.  I've incubated eggs before with a simple homemade incubator.  I'm not sure that this is a great time to have more little chickens running around, but my sister says we should and I like the idea.

My understanding is that the eggs will keep without dying if they're not sat on right away, so that the mom can collect a few and have them all hatch at about the same time, is that right?  If I build an incubator and put eggs in it as they are laid won't we get a stream of chicks hatching one-by-one?  Or will they somehow sync up on their own?

I can look this up, but it's comforting to ask you good folks.  

Simon Foreman wrote:My understanding is that the eggs will keep without dying if they're not sat on right away, so that the mom can collect a few and have them all hatch at about the same time, is that right?  If I build an incubator and put eggs in it as they are laid won't we get a stream of chicks hatching one-by-one?  

Exactly!  So what does momma duck/chicken/goose do?  She lays an egg. She covers it over if she's a duck/goose, and then she wanders off and has a good day. Next day, she does the same (unless she's a goose, in which case she skips a day). When she starts to get a collection, she often starts leaving feathers in the nest to protect the eggs.

Very Important: when she returns to the nest to lay another egg, she turns all the existing eggs, as the movement stops the layers of the eggs from sticking together. Do you remember having to turn the eggs in the incubator? Well, if you want to do this, you need to start turning them even before you incubate them, but once per day will do.

How many Banty eggs will fit in your incubator? Ideally, I would want to end up with at least 10 chicks - they keep each other entertained. However, if only 1 bird is laying, you'll likely have to settle for less, as again, ideally, I prefer not to save eggs longer than 7 days.

All that said, yes, it is likely a viable egg, but Banty eggs taste even better than full size eggs, at least to Banty egg aficionados. In the wild, out of 10 eggs laid, a mom is lucky to get 6 hatch, and lucky to get 2 that grow up to be adults. If you start hatching every egg your Seabrights lay, your population may quickly outgrow your infrastructure, the local insect population, and your ability to manage the excrement.

Not to mention, at least 50% will be male, and the noise level will increase accordingly. In fact, I read a fairly reliable experiment which suggested that pointy eggs do indeed tend to be roosters, and more rounded eggs, tend to be hens - another good reason to choose to eat a few... My Khakis seem to only rarely lay "rounded" eggs. This spring of 11 live, 9 were drakes. At the moment I've got a gaggle of 7 young ones, and I *think* I've got 1 female. I've been waiting until the smallest ones grow a little more before wading in there and seeing if *any* of them will "quack".

Congratulations on finding another egg!
Philosophies on egg hatching are as varied as most other things about allowing livestock to reproduce.

Is it viable? Maybe? It's hard to tell for pullet eggs. I prefer to wait until the birds are a bit older and have gotten into a regular cycle. The eggs are slightly (or greatly) larger, there aren't nearly as many potential problems with egg formation, and you know the rooster is doing what he needs to do. Cockerels, being young roosters and not as practiced or smooth with procedures, are generally more iffy. Basically, there's an argument for waiting until the birds are a little older and have practiced a little more at the "making the gametes and sharing them" part of things.

Listen to Jay. Jay knows important stuff.
Everything Jay says, I underline. Think long and hard about what your plans are, what you're going to do with and about birds you don't want, and where you intend to go from here. You can always expand your plans, but having some experience is important before you go charging ahead. Take your time and think about your options.

Whatever you decide to do, have fun with it. (And you can run an incubator, and have a separate "locked down" incubator for doing the actual hatching in because what you described is something that *can* be done but... I probably wouldn't try it because it involves A LOT of moving pieces and ... yeah. no.)

Cheers!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate the info and support!

I'll talk to my sister about it again this morning.  I don't know about Tiny Omelette, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the right time to try to hatch this lil guy (the egg seems pointy to me), we're still in the process of moving all our stuff from SF to Redding.  (And we're running out of moolah, but we have some ideas, but that's another thread.)

Thanks again!  More photos soon...

I took some photos of the crew this afternoon when they were playing in a sunbeam, here's one of the best ones.

In re: the eggs, they laid another one (three total, one got eaten) but that seems to be about it.  We have been turning the two eggs but we haven't started incubating them.  We're still not entirely sure what to do with them.

Beautiful birds! Thank you so much for sharing the pictures! Such a handsome lad and lady.

Since you liked them, here's two more.  Enjoy...