Fell into the Bantam bin at TSC...

My husband will tell you I've been pretty obsessed with bantam chickens for the last couple of months.  Bedtime reading is more often than not a poultry catalog, which must be super sexy to some people but not in our house.  In spite of my pledge to take a season off.... well.... it's Chick Days right now at Tractor Supply Company.  Bantams are actually miniature chickens, the pair we currently have are full grown and the size of grapefruit.  Cute as buttons, the size of walnuts when chicks, they come in all different wonderful & amazing feather patterns that standard chickens don't. To beat it all they only cost $1.99.  

$1.99 regular price.  When I rolled in they were on sale buy one get one free.  There are policies at feed stores pertaining to the minimum amount of chicks you can purchase but in my opinion there also should be a waiting period for people like me.  As in "Hey, crazy pregnant chicken lady: pick out your chicks and then go have lunch while we do a quick background check/call your husband.  Cool your heels a bit."

But they don't do a background check so here we are on the ride home.  The one box is stuffed full of peeps.  The other?  Continue reading.

I bought 10 total.  They are sold "straight run" (unsexed) so probably half will end up being roosters.  Thought it would be cute to stuff them all into a pie plate for a picture but they weren't having it.  Here are the varieties that came home with me:

Teacup saucer for scale.  These are Silver and Golden Seabrights. Bought 2 of each. When they get older they look like this:

Thanks for the picture Wikipedia. This is a Silver.  The Golden have orange where you see white here.

I bought 5 of these.  Hoping, hoping, hoping that they are Millie Fleur chickens.  Which look like this:

Those are real chickens, folks.  I've seen them at the fair and they are stunning.  If they ARE Millie Fluers, they're getting separated off into a little breeding group and we'll raise chicks from these.

This little guy on the right, I have no idea what it is and bought it for the fun of finding out.  Some kind of Game Bantam maybe?

But, hey, wait - what was in the other box?

A pair of Khaki Cambell ducklings.  I don't know what to say here except they were also on sale two for $5.00.  Ducklings are so horribly messy to raise, not to mention high strung, and I would not have considered these in a million years if we weren't getting baby goslings in the mail next week.  Remember how the hatchery sent me the wrong geese?  The replacements are due to arrive next week and the ducks will bunk with them.  It also occurred to me that the since we're only getting 2 replacement geese they might do better with buddies... so... anyway.... yeah.  I'm hoping they're both drakes and will rise to glory in Duck Bigarade.  My husband hasn't noticed these yet and I'm operating on a "don't ask don't tell" policy just to see how long it takes as an amusement to myself.  He does love Duck Bigarade.  So far they've been in the basement unnoticed for two days.

So, that's it for the fun news.  Spring has sprung here in one of the best ways.