hello from Dublin!

Hi there,
My names is Amanda. I live with my family in Dublin, Ireland. Family includes an aged, smelly, indolent, friendly Bassett Hound (who cannot be bothered to chase anything - he has a very "you threw the stick, why don't you go get it" attitude), 3 gorgeous children (aged 12, 9 and 9) and Himself.
We have a small city cottage with a small city garden where we are considering, just considering keeping 2-3 Silkie Bantams (my daughter has already named hers Snowflake... I like the name Spooky).
At the moment, I am just trying to work out how feasible it would be. I don't like to keep animals caged if they don't like being confined - we looked after a pair of guinea pigs recently and I'm not sure that they have a happy life.

We have seen a nice small coop and run, and are considering putting it in some 4x4' raised flower beds, that we will mulch with leaves etc. It is slug central out there right now.

We would appreciate any advice.

Welcome to BYC. I think that silkies would be a nice addition to your yard. Start with the Learning Center at the top of the page. Then peruse/search the forums, plan and all will go well.

Welcome. Silkies are wonderful chickens and make great pets plus can be good layers. Most of my silkie hens will lay 4 eggs a week.

Hi Amanda

Glad you could join the flock! Silkies would be a great choice of chicken for your garden. They can be super friendly, my frond has a trio for her chick Drew and even does show and tell at school with them. The kids just love them!!
The learning centre is super place to start for lots of great articles on getting started ~https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center

Wishing you the very best of luck and enjoy BYC

I've never raised silkies but a lot of members here have. From what I've read they make great pets, they're friendly and don't take much space. I guess it is hard to tell the males from the females until they are several months old so if having a rooster is a problem, that's something to be aware of. Some people have silkies for house pets too.

It's nice to have you here!

Welcome to BYC, Amanda. Glad you decided to join our flock. My wife and I visited Ireland for our 37th wedding anniversary and loved your beautiful countryside. X2 on sourland and Yorkshire coop; if you haven't done so already, definitely check out our Learning Center. There is lots of useful information there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

Welcome to Backyard chickens. In the US we have only bantam silkies , I think in UK they are full size birds. Silkies aren't the best layers . Hens tend to go broody often wanting to hatch chicks. When they are broody they stop laying. They can go broody even on invisible eggs. If you don't have a rooster, you can put fertile eggs of any breed under them and they will raise them as their own. They are very popular with kids and often put up with being pushed in a baby carriage and being dressed up.

thanks everyone for the welcome! Can I just ask - are the hens really sad when they are broody? Do you need to make them un-broody or do they just get over it by themselves?

OMG @ dressing them up and pushing them around in a pram!! I happened upon a thread that talked about nappies for indoor chickens and am still trying to get my head around that! (although, having said that, I did dress up the bassett hound as a pumpkin for halloween) NB.it was the first time ever in 12 years though, and it was for a doggie parade which was won by a moulin-rouge-jack-russell in her own velvet lined baby carriage theatre!
I digress.
I looked up a breeder from the Irish Poultry Breeders association site the other day, and he said he doesn't sex the 8 week old chicks he sells, but you would know at around 5 months old when/if they start crowing... but he said he would take back a male and exchange for another chick. He also said he will have some for sale around february. Does this sound about right (and what would happen to the rejected rooster?)
There was also another thread about house-training silkies...
Small girl is getting very excited about all this. It is looking more an more possible!

AmandaJaneW said:

thanks everyone for the welcome! Can I just ask - are the hens really sad when they are broody? Do you need to make them un-broody or do they just get over it by themselves?

Click to expand...

You're welcome. No, broodiness has to do with hormonal changes that take place in a hen and they will remain broody until those hormonal changes end. You cannot make them unbroody.