“Like butterflies,” she said they were, and I could find words not better to describe them.
The utterance came from the excited lips of a neighbour’s granddaughter (age, I suspect, in mid-single digits). She had wandered over to see my birds. Contrary to expectancy, she lifted the lid of a cage that contained a half-dozen three-week-old chicks, and one flipped up and out silently over her shoulder.
I had hatched these particular silver Sebrights in my incubator, and being this my busy season, I found little time to pick them up and handle them more than at the three-times-a-day feed check. By the third day from chipping their egg to freedom, they develop fast-growing wing feathers that enable them to fly, and with little hesitation or irritation, they take no chance on trusting the hands of a stranger.
They are attractive, active, easy to accommodate, fun to watch little birds. I have enjoyed raising them now for, I suppose, about two decades. The Little Lady and I always kept a trio of them to scamper about our urban garden, eating up newly sprouted weed seeds and hungry, intruding bugs and beetles.
We would release them about an hour before sunset to scamper about, with their heads turned sideways, with one eye looking up and the other down, catching out-of-sight, under-leaf insects, creepy-crawlies on the ground, and newly sprouted weed seeds. Just prior to darkness, with crops well filled, having had their bedtime snack, with little encouragement from us, they would scramble, often tumbling head over heels, back into the shed and fly up into their respective cage to settle down for the night.
While searching Google on the Internet, I find they are the smallest bantam that exists. Their namesake, John Sebright of England, developed them early in the 18th century. Their feathering developed in both the gold and silver colour, with each feather prominently edged in a thin line of black.
The roosters have what they call “hen feathering” because they have no long tail feathers as other roosters do. Their upward chest-out stance, drooping wing tips, square-cut tail and high-stepping movement common to both sexes make them very attractive indeed.
With no apologies to the expression, coined, I believe in the music industry, “poetry in motion” could well be “poultry in motion.” Take your pick. I like the latter. And yes, like music to my ears, the roosters give a pleasant crow to wake you in the morning.
Both the gold and the silver Sebrights are a little on the difficult side to raise. There is usually less than 50 per cent fertility. They need a building that does not drop below 40?F in the winter months, and the newly hatched need brooder heat about three times longer than most other chicks.
Because of their size, they are not noted for either meat or eggs. Nevertheless, four of their one-third size eggs poached and perched, pertly on your toast in the morning, with a side order of homemade, lip-smacking jam, has a tendency to start your day off on the right foot.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105