Kristen,
I have inquired as several hatcheries about getting sexed bantams and they have all told me that they do not sex bantams because they are so small.

Your luck with the two hens out of 15 chicks is about what I have experienced....ended up with a bunch of bantam roosters. Even when my little gray Japanese banty hen sat and hatched a total of eight chicks I got only two little hens!

Since I really "needed" hens I went to a chicken/poultry swap in the fall and came home with twelve pretty little bantam hens. Maybe you could find a swap in your area in the Spring/Summer coming up?

Sure wish you good luck!

Judy

Well why in the world would bantams hatch out so many more roosters than hens?? Very strange!! I guess I"ll just have to take my luck of the draw again ... sigh... I don't know where to find a poultry swap! Maybe next year at the fair I'll take down some info from people with banties or something.

I got 3 bantam chicks and they all started crowing around the same time. LOL. I swapped 2 for hens. Guess we are just lucky!

Good question, Kristen. I now believe that most chickens hatch a large majority of males.

When I was a little girl, over fifty years ago, my Grandma always bought "straight run" chicks....several hundred early in the Spring, each year. She never got many pullets from those purchases....and those roosters fed our family. When her number of laying hens got too low she would buy more expensive chicks that had been sexed. Evidently, the difference with the banties is that they cannot be sexed due to their small size.

Maybe you can find some little hens by advertising in a local paper....we have some small free papers published in our areas that are focused on agricultural interests. I pick up one weekly at a local gas station/quick stop(that is where I found the local chicken swap).

Wish you were closer to me and I could help more.