Mini Micro Chickens

new breed of chicken, smallest in the world

 

Cor, they yours?

 

Any pics of adult ones?

 

Hate to say it but they look an awfull lot like a quail chicks, especially with those colourings coming through.

 

yep Dan your spot on yep they're mine Zigs, pics i took of last years chicks but eh...well it was only a teeny tiny itty bitty little white lie.....they're not actually chickens they're Chinese Painted Quail (called "Button Quail" in America) and they are the worlds smallest i thought these chicks looked remarkably like chickens as babies and..well i just couldn't resist having a bash at pulling your leg

 

here's a few pics of my adult "Mini Chickens" as requested by Dan The Man full grown they're only about the size of a chicken chickthey can become very tame and trusting...absolutely love these little guys







i have to throw a pic in of them hatching in my trusty lil incubator. its only supposed to take three hens (Chicken) eggs but if i turn the eggs by hand i can easily cram 20+ in LOL not that i'd ever hatch that many in one go again though...i keep them in the house as babies so we had quail babies coming out our ears

 

Awwwww....

 

Their lovely!! Couple of questions. Sure I could find out on google but I'm also sure people on here are just as intrigued
Are they good layers?
Can they fly?
And do they "free range" at all or are they too small? And have to confined to the "run"

 

oh questions YAY

it'd be amazing to have them free range but unfortunately they do sorta fly, kind of, they "boink" which is what people affectionately call it when they do a sort of leap into the air flappin' like crazy, they go straight up like a rocket! i keep mine safely under lock & key in the aviary/shed because of this, a few years ago one actually managed to escape & leap/flap/flew over our 7ft fence into the jaws of the staffy next door, so free range ain't for them, mores the pity.

yep they are excellent layers, they'll rarely miss a day if i don't discourage them, which i do as (unless im collecting them to incubate) they'll just go to waste as...and im ashamed to say this but...we're all too squeemish to eat themwe planned to, really we did, but then we hatched a few and that was it, none of us could stomach the thought of eating them cos they are all (in theory) fertile & 'hatchable',ridiculous i know but the eggs are tiny anyway you'd probably need about 3 or 4 to equal one chicken egg anyway my little guys are only pets anyway, the less the hens lay the longer they live so i discourage them as much as possible, this laying lark takes its toll on their tiny frames. the eggs may be small compared to chicken eggs but compared to the size of the quail themselves the eggs are bloomin' enormous! brings tears to your eyes just think' about them poppin them out

 

sooooooooo cute!!!! I was thinking "OMG it would take about 50 eggs to do a decent plate of scrambled egg for my lot of gannets!!!

 

yeah, give or take another dozen or so lol they are tiny though...here's a pic of one that was just hatchingyou can see how small they are

 

I can completely understand how u can't eat their eggs if u hatch them!!!!

 

You getting broody loli
They are so cute

 

Think i'm eggbound these days Joolz