We all love our bantam breeds. No matter the quirks!
Some have 4 toes, some 5, and some have feathered feet.
Chickens with feathered feet are just as sweet as the other breeds.
And today, we will talk about the nine best bantam chicken breeds with feathered feet.
Let’s dive in!
9 Bantam Chickens with Feathered Feet
1. Mille Fleur Bantam (Mille Fleur d’Uccle)
The Mille Fleur breed is a feathered variation of the Belgian bearded or Barbu d-Uccle bantam chicken breed.
The phrase, Mille Fleur, translates from the Franch language, meaning a thousand flowers.
This feather-footed bantam breed is wonderful, with speckled, orange plumage resembling many little flowers.
Belgian d’Uccle are true bantams, meaning they don’t have a standard-sized counterpart like other breeds. The first Mille d’Uccle variety was added to the American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection in the early 1900s.
Like all Barbu d’Uccle bantams, the Mille Fleur is a low, broad bird with short feathered legs.
Their short necks and “beard” or feathers around Mille Fleur’s necks and heads give them a round appearance.
This feather-footed bantam is primarily raised as a show bird.
However, many people raise them as pets because they’re so talkative and friendly.
Mille Fleur birds typically weigh over one pound, with roosters averaging 4 ounces higher. Hens lay about 160 small white eggs, tend to be broody, and make adorable attentive mama birds.
The Mille Fleur breed is generally healthy with no severe congenital health issues.
However, the leg feathers make them more prone to scale leg mites, but no worries, they respond well with treatment.
Since this bantam variety is relatively small, they tend to have a reasonably high metabolic rate. In turn, it means they don’t fare well, nor are they fond of cold weather and harsh winter conditions.
2. Buff Brahma Bantams
Chicken fans who like the standard Buff Brahma breed are often quick to fall in love with the adorable bantam breed.
Not only are buff Brahma bantams cute, but they’re also friendly, tame, and docile, making them kid-friendly.
Buff Brahma bantams make incredible show birds with their feathered feet and buff-colored feathers with a touch of black around their neck, tail, and wing tips.
It helps that these birds are typically easy to handle and gentle in nature.
This breed lays about one hundred small eggs throughout its laying cycle.
Chicks have down feathers dark brown to golden in color throughout their body with yellow chests.
Buff Brahma bantams weigh around two pounds. Unlike the Mille Fleur, this feather-foot is cold-hardy.
3. Booted Bantam – Dutch Booted Bantam
I find booted bantams to be an incredible sight to behold. Their stance and posture seem elegant.
They look serious when strutting through the yard with their beautiful tails full and held upright.
Booted bantams are known to have a quiet and calm disposition. They are easy to handle and seem to enjoy being shown off.
You can find this breed in a wide range of colors, only adding to their beauty and showiness.
Many keepers with this breed in their coop claim that the bird’s small size and sweet and docile personalities make them an excellent choice for families with children.
People who raise booted bantams often house their flock on soft bedding or indoors to help protect their showy, six-inch-long hock feathers.
It seems appropriate to mention that these little cuties reach a max weight of 1.87 pounds (roosters) and 1.69 pounds (hens).
Because of the breed’s small size and personality are used exclusively as pets or for exhibition.
Booted bantams lay two white or tinted eggs weekly, which is a respectable amount for a bantam breed.
However, you’d need several of their little eggs to make a meal; they’re more of an appetizer or delicacy.
That said, booted bantam hens tend to go broody, making far better mothers than an omelet or eggs benedict producer.
4. White Silkie Bantam
Silkie bantams are an Asiatic, feather-footed chicken variety, and the white silkie is gorgeous! Silkies have an abundance of amazingly soft and fluffy, hair-like feathers.
While they’re called “white” silkie bantams, they are actually smokey white.
Interestingly, their beak, skin, legs, toes, and bones are black.
Silkie’s beards, muffs, and crests are unique to their breed. The five toes (one extra on each foot) and feathered feet add to this breed’s unique beauty.
White silkie bantams are easy to care for, docile, and incredibly easy to handle. This variety takes confinement exceptionally well.
This bird breed’s tame nature, docile behavior, and desire to hang out in their human laps make them excellent backyard pets.
5. Black Silkie Bantams
Silkies are adorable (sometimes silly-looking) little balls of fluff. This breed is soft and fuzzy rather than feathery because their feathers lack barbicels.
Black silkies, like all silkies, can be bearded and non-bearded. These little black fuzzy fluff balls have mulberry-colored wattles, comb, and faces. While their ear lobes are a light blue turquoise standing out against dark bluish/black skin.
Silkies are incredibly likely to sit on their little clutch of small brown eggs. Watching them raise their little chicks is adorably cute.
This bantam chicken breed is an excellent choice for a pet and show. However, their fluffy feathers can be difficult to keep clean; raising them indoors or in an area with soft, clean bedding is recommended.
6. Buff Silkie Bantam
Buff or buff bearded silkies are the perfect variety for someone who wants a small friendly chicken with a unique personality. Kids love them and vice versa.
Buff silkies have vibrant golden or straw-colored plumage, some with little brown streaks. It may seem surprising to some that all silkies have black skin, toes, legs, feet, and beaks, regardless of their feather color.
These birds do well in confinement but also make great backyard pets in the proper conditions. They lay cream or tinted eggs, bantam-sized, of course.
7. Blue Silkie Bantam
True, blue silkie bantams can be very difficult to find.
They’re almost equally tricky to breed, and it’s relatively common for various odd colors to hatch out in the mix.
Just a little secret, they are a slate gray color rather than blue, and their feathers can have a beautiful black lacing around the edges.
8. Porcelain d’Uccle Bantams
Porcelain bantams are relatives to the Mille Fleur and Belgian d’Uccle bantam breeds. Porcelains were introduced to the U.S in 1965 and have yet to become as popular of a species as some.
This ornamental bantam breed has feathered feet and full beards.
If you look closely at their plumage, you’ll see a base of parchment feathers, each marked with lavender-blue crescent moons and tipped with a pale gibbous spangle.
While porcelain’s fluffy beards add an air of shyness, they are extremely friendly. Their friendly behavior and sweet disposition make this feather-footed bantam breed excellent for people who like pets.
Porcelain bantams aren’t cold-hardy but do better in a free-ranging environment. Hens are often broody and make excellent mothers after hatching.
9. Pekin Bantam
There are a couple of different stories about Pekins. One claims the first Pekin breed was stolen from the emperor of China’s private collection during the late 1800s.
While another reports the bird was imported from China between the mid to late 1800s and then presented to Queen Victoria.
The two birds imported from China were later crossed with other breeds resulting in what we know and love today, Pekin bantams.
Pekins are undeniably gentle and tame. They are excellent layers of small eggs, are frequently broody, and are amazing moms.
Pekins need access to grass to forage; otherwise, they begin to look pale and anemic.
It’s been said that they’re not big scratchers, so they do well if allowed some room to free-range.
This feathery bantam breed is available in a wide range of colors; blue, lavender, silver and red partridge, Columbian, cuckoo, blue mottled, black, buff, wheaten, and white.
Regardless of color, this breed’s feathers make them appear larger than they really are. All varieties have short legs with feathered feet and toes.
The Pekin bantam’s silkie flowing feathers, colors, and friendliness make them an excellent choice as show breeds as well as pets. Make friends with a Pekin and find out how similar they are to lapdogs.
Feather Foot Concerns
While feathered feet look adorable with their flashy feathered legs, there are a few crucial things to know.
Scaly Leg Mites: Feather-footed birds are typically more vulnerable to leg mites than breeds without.
Their feathers emerge from beneath the scales or scute of their legs, making it easy for scaly mites to dig in and infest.
Mites are usually easy to treat, but the feathered legs make them more challenging and messier. Prevention is the best medicine!
Feather Picking: Ever since my Brahma was a chick, I’d catch him picking and plucking at his foot feathers; his son does the same thing.
Picking usually refers to your birds being picked on, and it’s true other birds will pick at their flockmate’s feathered feet.
Feather picking can result in sore spots and infection, so keep an eye on those birdies.
Muddy Eggs: Again, their feathered legs “look” amazing. However, there will be mud unless you live in a desert or dry area.
This means the hen’s leg feathers will become muddy, and they’ll likely get dirty when she lays and sets on her eggs.
Aside from the mud, these birds can get poopy leg feathers as well, yuck.
Frostbite: While feather-footed chickens can enjoy a bit of extra warmth during the cooler months.
They are incredibly vulnerable to developing frostbite in wet and snowy environments, particularly the little bantam breeds. In cold and damp environments, offer extra bedding and do your best to keep their feathers dry.
Bantam Chickens with Feathered Feet
Bantam chickens are adorable, but some have feathered feet only raises the cuteness level up a notch.
All nine of these feather-footed chickens are friendly and make excellent pets.
Due to their small size and tiny eggs, bantam breeds are for exhibition and pets.
Most of them have friendly dispositions and enjoy the company of others and humans.