Mille Fleur d"Uccles

Or Dee UCCles, as they are called here... if I say "D'Uccle" (in French, of the town of Uccle) I am corrected! 

 

Coming from a small Belgian town, the d'Uccle bantam is a true bantam breed, there is no standard version of it.  It currently comes in four or five colors, and we keep the Mille Fleur (thousand flower) and the Porcelain varieties. 

 

They are friendly little birds, they talk a lot to you, and I have a friend who kept one in a cage in her apartment, and the little hen commonly rode around on her husband's shoulder outside, with no tether!  Tilly the Milly!

 

This is Boots, from the March, 2011 hatch.  He is not a correct Mille rooster, he has too much white and his feathers should reflect the pattern that shows on his breast here.  He's a plucky little thing, though, and I like him a lot.  Nugget, the golden cochin bantam, is his best girl.

 

 

This little guy here doesn't have enough white, but he is a purebred Mille from this summer's hatch in the pasture pen.  He is a son of Cocky, the deceased older Mille that the owl got.

 

 

This is a more correct Mille rooster... it's Junior, the second oldest son of Cocky, born in the doghouse next to him.  He's taking great care of his dad's little harem.

 

 

And that little tiny guy in the back is the smallest of the Mille roosters... I don't think he is purebred, I think he is Mille and silky, though his head does not look silky.  The three "spotted" hens are the purebred Mille hens from the pasture pen... they all have nice coloring.  The bigger brown hen (she is actually a bantam) is Fleura, a cochin/silky cross. All the hens in this pen are laying.

 

 

And here, of course, are Muffy and Bitsy, the two Naughty Girls.  Bitsy has really whitened out in the last six months... she was not always so white, but more like Muffy, in the foreground.

All of the Mille Fleur hens will be moving to the new henhouse as soon as it is open.  I haven't made a decision about Junior, yet, but I think Boots will stay with the older hens and his girl Nugget. 

 

We're getting very close to the move... Keith has been doing some really nice things to the interior of the henspa, but I want to wait until it is almost ready to show you.