Buying Poultry On-Line

Terry Wible

Now for a little Japanese Bantam talk. I found a new points of interest on the Internet. They are poultry auction sites similar to Ebay except they are chicken auctions. You can bid on hatching eggs, bantam chicks, bantam started, bantam mature, and standard in these three categories. I have sold a few birds through these auctions and I have bought some eggs. I made one good purchase of eggs that hatched well and one bad purchase of two dozen eggs that were all infertile. You just have to be careful. Having some experience in breeding, hatching, and raising Japanese bantams, I would like to make some observations about buying Japanese bantams this way.

I have spent a little time looking at pictures of Japanese bantams that are posted on a variety of web sites. These pictures are part of an overall advertisement for eggs, chicks, or mature stock. The pictures are to be representative of what you can have if you purchase eggs, chicks, or mature stock from the advertisers.

There are many breeds of chickens that can successfully purchased this way, but I find it hard to believe that a Japanese Bantam that will be a show winner can be had by purchasing eggs, chicks, or mature stock from these web sites.

Now there are a few exceptions, the JBBA site being one and a Chabo site from Europe being another. These are breed club sites though. If you want to get pictures to study the breed go to these sites. I would like to give reasons for my opinion. Japanese bantams seem to be a popular breed at these sites. I visited one of these sites today and found two listings of eggs for sale with pictures of the sellers breeders. I would have to say they looked more like Leghorns than Japanese. I have begun to wonder if people really know what a good Japanese looks like.

I would like to give some suggestions. First, if you choose to buy a dozen Japanese eggs you only have a probability of hatching six chicks unless you are buying eggs from this Leghorn-type Japanese. Their fertility is probably as good as Leghorns, but if you raise them and put them in a show they won't place as Japanese. Of those six chicks that you have hatched several will be long legged and should be culled as soon as they come out of the incubator. This leaves you at best with three or four chicks. From the pictures I have seen on the internet you will be very fortunate to get anything out of those three or four chicks that will amount to anything. Chicks could be a different matter if the person you are buying from only sends you short legged chicks. But in order to be able to produce enough chicks to sell a dozen short-legged Japanese chicks the breeder you are purchasing from has to have enough breeders to produce a lot of young. If I want to sell 25 short legged chicks, with the percentages of Japanese breeding, I would have to hatch 75 to sell 25.

I have seen several sellers calling the birds they are selling 'pet quality'. At least this is being somewhat honest. But, from a cost stand point, it costs the same amount of money to feed a 'pet quality' bird as it does a 'show quality' bird. I said somewhat honest. I do not want to imply that anyone is being dishonest, just maybe misinformed about what a Japanese bantam should really look like.

There are several good web sites that have pictures of Japanese bantams that are 'show quality'. I am just suggesting you do your homework before you invest your money so you aren't disappointed at the show. It takes a lot of time to hatch and raise a chicken to show maturity only to have them totally overlooked by a judge because they are 'pet quality.'