Spotlight Sunday – Learn About Our Special Animals
Meet Tina, a Gold Sebright bantam. We usually call her Tiny Tina. She came to us a year ago on 12 September 2021. She was part of a LARGE drop off. The family was getting rid of all their animals, including 32 hens, 7 roosters, 6 turkeys, 1 duck, and a couple of goats. It was a case of “too much too soon”. The family had no animals 18 months prior. The husband was gone a lot with his job. At home was a mom with a newborn and two young children. The farm chores fell mostly to the children. It was a stressful situation and the family wisely decided to give up the animals.
The animals showed up in a horse trailer. The husband had already rehomed the goats. A friend came to get the turkeys and the duck. The roosters were set aside for processing. And among a flock of full-sized hens was Tiny Tina.
You couldn’t help but notice her. There was no need to tell her she was small. In her mind, she was just as big as the rest and could hold her own. Sebrights aren’t known for being super friendly, but Tina didn’t mind being held. She was young, and gave us a very small egg that gets donated to the local food pantry along with our other small eggs.
Tina went broody a few weeks ago. She decided she wanted to start a family, and picked the garage as her starter home. She settled on a feed bucket half filled with scratch grains as her preferred spot. We don’t let our hens sit on eggs, and we didn’t think her eggs were fertile, so we gave her a couple of golf balls to keep warm.
Since we don’t hatch bantam chicks, the only choice was to give her full-sized chicks. After 3 weeks in the feed bucket, she got her babies. We always worry about first time moms, but Tina was a natural. She immediately made the low “bok-bok-bok” sound that tells the chicks “I’m your mom, listen to me”. She was a very happy chicken mom.
What is a bit humorous is that after a few weeks, the chicks will be a big as Tina. She won’t care. Those are her babies and she will love them no matter how big they get.
If you visit the farm in the next few weeks, you’ll see Tiny Tina and her babies in one of the pens or on the front lawn. Don’t mess with her babies. Enjoy them from a distance. Tiny Tina might look small, but she will protect her babies with the vigor of a large hen!