Meet The Team

Hi, I'm Stu Ames and along with my other half Mike, have been breeding Booted Bantams since 2013. Our original hen came as a hatching egg in a group we bought to go under a broody. We really weren't sure what to expect, but when she hatched we were totally smitten by, well, just everything about her. We soon acquired more Booteds, she couldn't be an only one, and within no time we'd said goodbye to all our other breeds and only had Booteds.

They are certainly addictive!

Growing up I had always had chooks, either for eggs or meat, the first birds of my own were a pair of Malay Bantams, the cockerel certainly lived up to his fighting heritage and many a pair of wellies bore the scars of his spurs. We also bred and showed dogs, and with a small obsession with animals and birds I also kept and showed rabbits, dwarf hamsters, zebra finches, foreign finches, budgies, quail and doves. Cats, guinea pigs, rats, mice and a goat completed the menagerie.

When i moved in with Mike and realised we were living within one of the hotspots for not only poultry shows, but more importantly to me, Booted fanciers, it was a tiny jump to wanting to show and improve our flock.

In 2014 we were fortunate enough to join the founder members of The Booted Bantam Society UK so have been with the club from its start. We were lucky enough to meet amazing breeders and exhibitors, acquire some great foundation stock and make some lifelong friends.

My obsession with this amazing breed has continued to grow and we now breed nearly all the standard colours, it's just Lavender Mottleds we don't have at the moment.....but watch this space!!

Rumpless Booteds joined the flock this year too!

As many know, I have a really big soft spot for the non standard varieties, and have nearly as many of these as standard colours. Gold Partridge, Blue Partridge, Silver Partridge, Yellow Partridge, Chocolate, Mauve and Blue Cuckoo to name a few.

At our first National in 2016 we won Best Non Standard Booted, and have repeated that win at every National since.

In 2018 we won Champion Booted with a Black boy, and also won Reserve Best and Best Opposite Sex. In 2019 a daughter of our 2018 Champ took the top honours, and we repeated our Reserve and Best Opposite awards too. 

I became a member of the committee in 2017, and two years later was honoured to be nominated and voted in as Club Chairman at the 2019 AGM. Unfortunately with Covid and Bird Flu it's not been plain sailing since and poultry Clubs and Shows are really having a hard time. I am confident that we'll be back, bigger and better really soon though, and we'll all be here with the best breed there is, as members of the best club around

Hi, I am Bev Nelson. I have been breeding Booted Bantams since 2006. Having first seen a photo of them, on the internet. 
I was instantly hooked. Seeing their photos and actually being able to buy birds, however was a whole different ballgame!

I started by buying some hatching eggs off Ebay... that worked well - 6 eggs bought - five hatched all males! Thankfully I met someone else online who was in need of a male so we both drove half way across the country to meet up and swap some birds. 

I bred as many as I could to begin with and slowly but surely managed to improve my birds over the years. I started to find other people that had other colours and eggs were bought and swapped. I remember in those early days travelling for hours to pick up a white male that I knew wasn't a good example but literally was the only one we could find that was available in the country at the time! Gradually I managed to breed Booteds in many colours and show them at some of the bigger shows each year. The first time I achieved Best Booted I could have cried it meant so much to me having literally started with nothing.

I have been fortunate to win Best Booted at the National & Federation many times, but I still aim at breeding better each year.  

 In the early days having no-where to go, to get help or advice about Booteds, I joined together with other like minded breeders and suggested we form a group – ‘The Booted Bantams Breeders Group’ was born. Having realised that there was sufficient demand for a Society I called on the group to see if we could form a society. After many years of hard work & tears, years of being told it won't be successful...

I am so proud of our Society. You often forget where we have come from to where we are today. Most of the current committee were members of the original breeders group.

I am very proud of what has been achieved so far and look forward to building the Booted Bantam Society to be one of the best breed clubs around.

So next time you want a Booted Bantam in a particular colour but think that 3 hour journey is a little too far. Just think back to what we had to do 15 years ago to pick up what was believed to be one of the few remaining birds in a particular colour in the country... 

Enjoy your breed, lets be honest they are just the best little birds around. 

I only wanted three layers and small ark – now we must have nearer 150 of all shapes and sizes (birds not arks!).

We breed Booted Bantams (obviously), in a range of colours (both standard and rumpless).

I also love breeding and showing Ayam Cemani, large Sulmtalers and large and bantam White Crested Black Polands. We’ve also won Best in Show with the bantam WCB Polands which is a great achievement. 

  

We also keep a range of home grown ‘mongrel’ layers as well which supply a good range of egg colours for showing.

I caught the showing bug early on and now love going to shows both large and small.

Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t but it’s always a good place to learn. 

 

I hope the Booted club will attract more breeders to help select and refine stock to get it as close to the breed standard as possible. 

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I live in Derbyshire where Alison and I breed both Booted Bantams and Rumpless Booted Bantams. In recent years we’ve decided to focus primarily on the millefleur varieties (Lemon, Gold, Silver and Porcelaine) although we also have experience with Lavender, Lavender Mottled, Black, White, Silver Birchen, Cuckoo and Buff White Millefleur.

 

I worked with the Rare Poultry Society and the Poultry Club of Great Britain to help establish the Booted Bantam Society as an independent breed club and served as Chair for it’s first five years.  As well as Booted Bantams, we have bred and shown Polands, Ayam Cemani, Sulmtalers, Araucanas, Ancona, Burmese Bantams, Wyandotte’s, Belgian Bantams among others.  We also keep Crollwitzer turkeys.  I am a trustee of the Poultry Club of Great Britain and judge True Bantam, Soft Feather Light and Rare Breed classes. 

 

In my ‘day job’, I work as a Programme Manager in the NHS, having previously spent 30 years in the charitable and voluntary sector developing accessible and community transport systems for isolated, disadvantaged and disabled people.  When not chasing chickens round the place, I like to tour the country and the continent on my motorcycle.

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  MIKE'S BIO TO FOLLOW SOON

 

 

  PAUL'S BIO TO FOLLOW SOON

 

 

 EMMA'S BIO TO FOLLOW SOON

 

 

    BARRIE'S BIO TO FOLLOW                        SOON