Special ordered from Belt through Urban Farm Oasis. Berkeley pickup, no minimum.
Seven chicks, raised in two houses for the first four weeks, then grown out together and merged into your flock of eleven in February. Four are Silkie bantams in solid black and buff, which is the color contrast you wanted next to your two whites. Three are sexed standards that carry new egg colors.
Urban Farm Oasis will add a special order onto their existing Belt Hatchery order, which removes Belt's 25 chick minimum entirely. That opens Belt's whole catalog at a Berkeley pickup.
These six go to Novella at Oasis on one Belt order. The third pullet comes from Peninsula separately, because Belt carries none of the three candidates.
Solid black, not the black and white paint pattern Peninsula was selling. Mulberry comb, black skin and bones, five toes, feathers down the shanks. Famously calm, tolerates handling better than almost any breed, and goes broody constantly, which is how you got chicks under a hen in the first place.
The golden variety, and the exact color contrast your August notes flagged as the thing you wanted beside the two whites already in the coop. Same temperament as the black. Between the two colors you get a visibly mixed Silkie group rather than four birds nobody can tell apart.
Five toes, a full beard and muffs, feathered legs. Listed as Threatened by the Livestock Conservancy. Hatchery copy says they do well with children and become affectionate with their handlers, and every keeper account agrees. The single best bird on this page for a room of second graders, and Belt will sex it, so nobody meets a rooster.
Dutch heritage breed, salmon breast over fine gold penciling. The egg is the reason: deep orange brown with dark speckles, and nothing else you own or are buying comes close to it. Around 160 a year.
Three candidates, all carried by Peninsula Feed, all sold as sexed females. You do not have to choose now.
The French Marans Club grades egg darkness 1 to 9. Black Copper scores 6 to 9, which is the egg people mean by chocolate. Your basket runs from cream down to a reddish brown and has nothing at the dark end, so this is the biggest single visible change one bird can make. Showed zero as chicks on their Sep 12 list, and they also sell it as a started pullet.
Brown pigment laid over a blue shell, which gives a deep dull green unlike anything in your carton. Distinct from your Easter Egger's yellowish sage and from every brown you collect. Not a breed but a cross, so no two look alike. Alchemist Farm sells it as a guaranteed female at $35 if Peninsula comes up empty.
Swedish, developed by Martin Silverudd in the 1980s, also sold as Isbar. Slate blue with a sheen and genuinely rare in the United States. The rarest bird of the three and the one most likely to be in stock. The caveat is that mint green sits closest to the green your Easter Egger already lays, so it adds the least to the carton.
| Option | Where | Deadline | Adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Copper Marans | Peninsula, weekly Saturdays | none, they hatch year round | the dark end your basket lacks |
| Olive Egger | Peninsula, or Alchemist at $35 | none at Peninsula. Alchemist closes the first week of October | a color you do not have at all |
| Silverudd's Blue | Peninsula, 7 on the Sep 12 list | none | rarity, but a green near one you have |
#965c38, already around a 3 to 4, so a hatchery Cuckoo would likely match it rather than beat it. The Welsummer already in the order covers speckled terracotta as well, which would have made it a second copy twice over.Each house gets a matched bantam pair plus one standard, so a loss on either side still leaves you both Silkie colors.
Silkies do not reveal their sex until four to six months, well after the chicks leave the room, so the classroom never meets a rooster. Silkies also cannot fly, which makes them the easiest bird in a classroom brooder.
The classroom three move in here at week 4, making seven. Same hatch, same source, so it is a reunion rather than an introduction and there is nothing to manage.
Whether to raise the Silkies alongside standards to help them integrate later.
Yes, mix them, and the two house split does it for you automatically. Chicks raised together settle a pecking order before size differences mean anything, so they arrive at the coop as one group instead of a bantam group meeting a standard group.
Three things to actually do:
| Risk | What to do |
|---|---|
| Standard chicks grow faster and monopolize the feeder by week four | Two feeders and two waterers in every brooder from week two, placed apart |
| Silkies cannot fly, so a high roost leaves them on the floor overnight | Keep at least one bar low, around 12 to 18 inches, with a ramp up to it |
| Silkies have a vaulted skull, a soft spot under the crest, where a hard peck can be fatal rather than just injuring | Watch closely through the merge, and trim crest feathers around the eyes if they start getting hit |
Oasis pickups are Fridays. Every date below is computed from a Friday Oct 16 pickup.
Six chicks from Oasis. Three go straight to the classroom brooder, three to Emily's. Paper towels on the floor for the first three days so they do not eat the shavings before they know what food is, and pebbles in the water tray so nobody drowns.
Peninsula pickup at 9:00am. Call earlier that week and take whichever of the three candidates is on that Saturday's list. One day apart is no gap at all, so she joins Emily's three in a single brooder the same evening and there is nothing to introduce. Limits are 2 per breed and 6 per family, and you are taking one bird, so neither binds.
The practical ceiling for a classroom. By now they flutter and the dander is heavy. They merge into Emily's brooder the same day with no introduction needed, since it is one hatch from one source. This lands well ahead of Thanksgiving week.
Fully feathered. Heat plate comes out. Seven birds in one grow out pen at Emily's through the winter.
Birds come home and live behind hardware cloth inside the run. Look but do not touch for two weeks. Your eleven watch them the whole time, which is most of the work.
Move them onto the roost after dark so they wake up as part of the group. Extra feeders, extra water, and hiding spots for two weeks. This is also roughly when a cockerel starts crowing. Oakland allows hens and not roosters, so line up a rehome before he announces himself. Silkie cockerels are among the harder birds to place, so start early.
The Welsummer brings terracotta with dark speckles and the Maran brings chocolate, which are the two colors nothing in your basket matches. The Silkies bring more small white eggs and a great deal of broodiness. Spring timing means no short day delay to worry about.
| Straight run birds | Expected hens | At least one hen | At least two hens | Expected cockerels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 bantams | 1.0 | 75.0% | 25.0% | 1.0 |
| 4 bantams | 2.0 | 93.8% | 68.8% | 2.0 |
| 6 bantams | 3.0 | 98.4% | 89.1% | 3.0 |
Four Silkies at even odds gives two expected hens and two expected cockerels. Add the three sexed standards and you land at five new hens on average, for a flock of sixteen. One over the target you set in August, which the third pullet's egg pays for.
| Flock size | Roost needed, at 10 to 12 inches per bird | In feet |
|---|---|---|
| 11 birds, today | 110 to 132 inches | 9.2 to 11.0 |
| 16 birds, expected | 160 to 192 inches | 13.3 to 16.0 |
| 18 birds, if every bantam is a hen | 180 to 216 inches | 15.0 to 18.0 |
Dropped on advice, and the advice is right. The crest blocks upward vision, which makes them startle badly, keeps them from seeing a peck coming, and makes them the standing target in a mixed flock. A bad case blinds one. That is a poor bird to hand a room of children. Belt's is also a bantam and straight run only, so it was a coin flip on a small bird with a known welfare problem.
Identified Sep 18 from your photos. The gray hen is an Easter Egger, a hatchery crossbred rather than a breed: white earlobe, slate legs, single comb, no crest, and a green egg. That is one signature trait each from Cream Legbar, Silverudd's Blue and Blue Andalusian and a clean match for none of them, which is exactly what an Easter Egger is. The barred hen is a Barred Plymouth Rock, yellow shanks and crisp barring. Something else in the eleven is laying your blue egg, most likely the Cream Legbar you thought you might have. No reason to buy any of the three again.
Real rare breeds and guaranteed females, but a long drive, and their season closes the first week of October. Belt through Oasis gets you more of what you want at a Berkeley pickup.
Chicks run on the absorbed yolk sac for 48 to 72 hours and Ohio to Oakland is two to three days. Small boxes are the thin margin case because chicks depend on collective body heat. Not worth it when the same breeds are available locally.
Three things to settle with Oasis before they place the order.
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Is the Marek's vaccine included? | Belt lists it as a separate line item at $0.15 per chick with a $15 minimum charge, not as standard. Oasis says their chick day birds come vaccinated, so they are clearly ordering it, but a six breed special order is worth one sentence of confirmation. |
| What do these actually cost? | $10 is the standard chick day price. Belt's rare tier and bantams cost Oasis more, so expect a markup and agree it up front. |
| Does the boxing fee pass through? | Belt charges $1.00 per breed, or $8.00 minimum, on any breed line under 25 birds. Six single bird lines could carry a fee. |