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Although I was enjoying keeping my brahma bantams I had always been in awe of the sheer size and appearance
of the large fowl brahma and so in spring 2008 I decided to hatch some large fowl eggs. Unfortunately I didn`t think the idea
through fully and this led to making a couple of major mistakes. Firstly in order to make space for my large fowl I decided
to sell all my brahma bantams. The second mistake was not to decide on what colours to keep and also be a little naive as
to how much space and food they need.
In no time at all I had Gold, Blue partridge, Light, Dark, Buff Columbian,
Red Pyle and Lemon Pyle growers eating me out of house and home. If I had a couple of acres this would not have been a problem
but a large garden and allotment were rapidly filling up and a rethink had to happen.
During the summer I
visited a few poultry shows and talked to a few people exhibiting large brahmas. They explained to me the length of time
it takes these birds to mature and it became obvious to me that if I wanted to keep them I would have to reduce my numbers.
The other point from seeing the brahmas at the shows it was obvious that the birds I had were of good standard but were a
long way from exhibition standard. It was at this stage I decided to have a total clearout and to start again with some quality
stock.
Through private sales and the Melton autumn sale I sold off all my birds and then set about finding
some stock to breed some quality birds from. At the Melton sale in September was a trio of Gold partridge LF brahmas
that stood out from every pen on the day and were duly graded as exhibition quality. I had an idea in my head of how much
I was willing to pay for them and actually bid quite a bit more but was unsucessful and returned home disappointed.
All was not lost however, I had recently joined the Brahma Club and was able through the members list to track
down the person who had entered the birds. The member concerned was Richard Bett and when I got in touch he had some birds
he was willing to sell and so I went to visit and purchase my first trio of large fowl brahmas. When I arrived at Richard`s
he showed me around his brahmas and then took me into the shed where the birds that he had for sale were. In the shed were
about a dozen gold pullets and to my untrained eye they were like peas in a pod. However Richard explained the strengths of
each bird and within about 10 minutes 2 pullets were picked and then placed in the back of my car. The next task was
to pick the cockerel out of a choice of 6 or 7and again they were all very similar but 1 of them just seemed to catch my eye
and so he came home with me. He was a pullet breeding male and has produced some super pullets last year.
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