Mission Control...we have LIFTOFF!!! Ooops, I mean LOCKDOWN!

[CALI CHICK]

Awww, that is so cute! I especially like the chick in the baby crib. How did your daughter get them to stand still?

We might have to take some pictures in my sons log cabin miniature now-LOL! Your babies are so adorable.

Kim, have you ever heard of using the pencil/needle/thread-method to determine sex (of the baby chicks)? Most people say it is a "wives tale", but I held the pencil over my wrist, my son's wrist, and my dog and got accurate readings. (Back-n-forth along the length of the arm is male and circles or across the wrist is female.)
-Then, I held it over the tallest standing, most protective chick (who we are thinking is a roo) and got a "male" reading! Then we "tested" the other chick who acts tough and bold and seems more protective of the chicks and it also showed "male". (It goes back-n-forth along their back and straight over their head...)

We were so excited that we "tested" ALL of the chicks. The more timid 2 that sort of hunch down both showed "girls". (The pencil swings in circles over their backs). The two black silkies that we just purchased at the feed store also showed little circles=girls! That would make 2 roosters and 4 girls if correct!

Another thing that is interesting is that the 2 "boys" are also the ones with the "claw toes". I talked to the breeder and asked her if any of her breeding stock had the claw-feet and she said out of 55 hens, only 1 has that kind of toe/feet. She only breeds it because everything else about the hen is exceptional SQ! I'm thinking my 2 chicks may have developed their claw/toes/feet because of an incubation heat/cold problem and therefore would NOT be a genetic trait. What do you think?

 

[wholewheatchicken]

I have not heard of the pencil trick, but would be willing to try.
I'm not sure what claw toes is. If you want to send a pic, I'll try and help you figure it out. The only thing I would say without seeing them is I'm thinking you had low humidity issues too - although nothing like mine! - and I know humidity issues will cause deformity issues in the chick's feet.
When your babies get a little older, you will be able to better sex them by looking at the feathers on the top of their heads. Boys will have more pointy towards the back and girls are more soft and rounded. That being said, I tried this in the fall on my two grey pullets and thought they were both boys!!!!! Then I saw one laying an egg and realized it was a girl. So the other was a boy, right???? NOOOOOO. She's a girl too. Both of my grey partridge are broody right now. Silkies are hard to tell. And my first batch I bought I thought most of them would be boys because you generally get more boys. Nope, again. I had one boy and the rest are girls!!!!! Yipppeeee. Except I let my guy free range and now I don't know how to curb his life to protect him from danger because I only have one breeder right now. Although........I did hatch a gorgeous baby from him that looks black, is from partridge boy/blackish hen, and so that black baby will be able to be bred back to a partridge.
If you would like to see my partridge guy, I just posted a pic of him in the partridge silkies nothing else thread that I subscribe to. There's a million pages and we are on the last or second to last. I just did it this afternoon. It was my first post on that thread so I am excited to see what advice I get. I know I need to work on his color some.
Gabby was so excited I posted some of her pics here. She wants to go to the section for talking about your chickens and post more over there. I think we have created a monster! She won't do the older birds for me because she says they run around too much because they are scared. She said these little babies stand still because they're scared. Maybe if she gets them used to picture posing, they will do great as they grow up.
She uses all her Barbie stuff. She has some of them driving the cars even. I homeschool too so anything that helps get them thinking outside the box and using creativity I am all for.
Maybe your little chicks can be out cutting some firewood???
And on the claw toe, did those two chicks hatch okay on their own or were they stuck for a while in the shell? I am pretty sure that those deformities happen when they don't hatch out fast enough so if they hatched fine then I would start by searching threads on claw toe/silkie chicks and if that didn't fit I would maybe then start thinking genetics?

 

[CALI CHICK]

My other silkies were really difficult to sex too so I was hoping for an alternate method besides "waiting 4 months!".

Actually we didn't know until they crowed at around 4 months of age. Sometimes the really high SQ roosters still look like hens. The only difference ours had from hens was the crowing (of course) and they had some streamers in their fluffy hair...but they didn't have the swept back hairdo like many roos and they had nice almond combs even when full grown. Their coloring wasn't pure enough to win so it's OK that we got rid of them. Here are some pictures of the boys we gave away..Storm, Pearl and Opal!

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Oh, my goodness. They are spectacular. I love the color of the last two. What color is that? Too bad they were boys and you couldn't keep them

Did you raise them from babies? I can't keep from going back and looking at the last two boys. Where did you get them from?

 

[wholewheatchicken]

I have to figure out how to write and post pics

I keep messing my post up so thought I should start over down here. It looks like I'm saying my bird is awesome and I'm talking about your pictures!!!
I took Peppie outside for a minute and tried to get a decent pic of him. It is very cold here...snow on the ground this morning....and he didn't like the temp. He is my partrige roo crossed with a blackish hen. He is crazy fluffy. I think he's a boy because of the how his feathers stick up on the back of his head and if I could get a better pic his comb and wattle are coming in. Can't wait to see how dark they will be because that was the only negative feedback I got on my roo was his comb/wattle was a little light, but that I could darken that up through breeding with the right hen. I put a pic of his feet to show you what I'm talking about in case you don't know what they mean by good toe spacing. I didn't know and that was one of the first questions I asked. Do you see where the fourth and fifth toe are? They should be far apart. The closer they get, the less good toe spacing they have. I think his look really great, but I'm a novice and am only going by what Cindy showed me on other birds as to good, okay, not good. The little blue partridge chicks I got from her have reallllllllyyyyyyyy bad toe spacing, but I'm hoping someone will make a good breeder and go from there.

 

[CALI CHICK]

Where do you start counting the toes...from outside of the leg to the inside OR from the inside of the leg to the outside? If Peppies toes are "good" then my two hens at least have good toe spacing. I will try to get a closeup of the "claw feet", but you can see one of them in the group photo on the far left side of the picture...I think it's Silhoette (and his right foot has the worst deformity.)

The color of Opal and Pearl (or should I say Opie and Pearly) isn't really an acceptable color per standards.

It looks like Opal is a white with touches of Buff and Pearl is a white with gray streaks, so maybe he was almost a lavender? They had perfect toes, though because that was one of the things the breeder checked before charging us $10 per chick. We bought them from a local breeder when they were about 10 days old so we got to raise them. I'm scared to get more from her though because SOOO many of her chicks turned out to be roosters (I think 75%). She may not be giving her hens enough protein or something? Another thing is that she shows her birds so I think she sets aside all the ones that look like they have good potential. (I have no proof of this.) A year ago, this April, we just picked out the cutest, fluffiest chicks from the brooders as pets. I had no idea on colors, standards, breeding, genetics, etc. All of the chicks we picked were sort of mixed colors, so this is another reason B/B pens and white pens appeal to me because I'm thinking I will get a purer color according to standards.
Here is a "baby picture" of those 4 silkies. The 4th chick had markings like a chipmunk, but our dog killed it...

 

[CALI CHICK]

Kim, here is a picture of my Storm (#1) and his new wife-Snowball. The lady that bought him from me sent this picture last fall. Snowball is a non-bearded silkie. They just had two babies hatch a couple of weeks ago. One was white and one was black -both bearded! Very interesting.

 

[CALI CHICK]

OK-here are pictures of the "claw toes" on two of my chicks. They are the toes on the inside of the leg...are these 1&2 or 4&5?
This is Silhoette and Hazy Daze...both of them are roosters according to the "test"!

 

[wholewheatchicken]

He is a good looken boy. Glad he got a pretty wife. That's nice you get to have updates on them. You know, I never thought to say but I had three white silkie girls that were actually my very first silkie purchase. I forgot about them the day they left!!!! They turned out to be boys and they were MEAN. I pretty much liked nothing about them and were so happy to have found them a home.
Are these the babies you have now in the pic above?
And I never thought about where to start counting toes. I just thought those two that are close together are the fourth and fifth, but that's probably just me. I'm talking about those two that are close together, they should have good spacing between them.
And, yes, I agree....that's the problem with getting birds from breeders. They do sort out the good ones and sell what they don't want in their program. Two ways to look at it.....you are hopefully getting good stock and you start at the bottom and keep working your way up like a lot of those breeders do and it takes several years to get things up and going or just get hatching eggs and pick what you want and sell the rest like the others do!!!! I got my blue partridge chicks from a good breeder. She kept the two she wanted out of the hatch and was selling the rest. Two were poor enough I got them for free. Their toes are not good. One has four toes, one has fused toes......I can't remember on the other two....and one looks like a paint chick, but came from a partridge pen. So I am going to grow these guys up and pick what I want from them and decide what to do with the rest. I'm okay with taking a chance and paying $5 a chick and seeing if I can make something out of it. If you read enough of these posts on here you can see that some excellent breeders are using some birds in their pens that have some bad qualities, but their type is so great they are willing to take a chance because even though your bird will throw some things to babies, it is the DNA makeup of both parents that are going to determine what the offspring looks like. But I do totally understand what you are saying. My DH wasn't very happy about the very same thing and I said.....but that's what I'm going to do. Funny though the person you bought from picked the chicks up and checked the toes out and handing you the ten dollar chick.
I wish we lived closer. We could get eggs and split the chicks between us. We could hatch all the colors and then divide them up between us since we like the opposites! Have you looked at Cat Dance Silkies birds? I love the way they look.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

OK-here are pictures of the "claw toes" on two of my chicks. They are the toes on the inside of the leg...are these 1&2 or 4&5?
This is Silhoette and Hazy Daze...both of them are roosters according to the "test"!

Are you talking about the foot that is on the left in the picture?