Sexing your Silkies (PICTURES AND TIPS - Updated July-5-12)

[aoxa]

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Now if it is true only for Silkies, I don't know, but for other breeds it is not always true. Kind of like a hen crowing or growing spurs. Most the time "the dance" is only predominantly in males, but some females (mostly the more dominate like the head hen) will do this dance. Most occurrences that I have seen have been in gamey and flighty breeds, but have seen a few cases in other breeds as well.

Do you mind stating those breeds? I have a really bossy head hen and have never seen her do the wing cutting. I will note in the thread that some game breeds can do this, but have never heard, nor seen it happen.

ETA: Adjusted it to state that some hens may engage in this behaviour, just as some may crow. It usually happens if the head hen is taking over the rooster duties.

Thanks for pointing that out! It really helped

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

Males will dance and even attempt to mate other males, silkies are no exception to this behavior. In a 'bachelor' pen of boys you'll have a dominate cockerel who will 'dominate' over the other boys, even harassing them with dances. lol its very funny even though you feel sorry for the humiliated submissive boys.


also the main physical characteristics can be very different between hatchery birds and breeder or birds from show lines. Also bearded silkies vs non bearded.

Bearded silkies have the big poofy beard under the beak and should have barely no waddles (or the mature boys will have very little ones you can barely see ) where non-bearded will start to grow waddles pretty early (boys and girls will develop noticeable waddles with the non-bearded (clean faced) variety)

With some show line birds you can get boys who are extremely slow to mature to manhood - its not uncommon to have a boy pass for a girl until 7 or 8 months old before the comb bumps out and the streamers start popping out. I've even heard of pullets in an all girl pen, one will start to strut and even crow - becoming the dominate girl and acting manly for awhile.

However I agree over all with all the points the Original Poster stated

Glad to see someone trying to help out with silkie ID. Silkies are still the hardest out there to sex, and will continue to be.

 

[aoxa]

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Thank you very much! I edited the part about the comb and inserted your notes about the bearded silkies. Thanks for the tips.

Silkies seem easier than polish to me

But I agree, they are definitely harder to sex at a young age than almost every other chicken!

 

[Tripp16]

Thank you sooo much for posting this!! I have 2 day old silkies that I hatched and I will needing this eventually!

Please sticky this Mods.

 

[aoxa]

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Congrats on your new babies! I'm sure we would all love to see some fluffy cuteness

 

[jeslewmazer]

Quote:
Now if it is true only for Silkies, I don't know, but for other breeds it is not always true. Kind of like a hen crowing or growing spurs. Most the time "the dance" is only predominantly in males, but some females (mostly the more dominate like the head hen) will do this dance. Most occurrences that I have seen have been in gamey and flighty breeds, but have seen a few cases in other breeds as well.

Do you mind stating those breeds? I have a really bossy head hen and have never seen her do the wing cutting. I will note in the thread that some game breeds can do this, but have never heard, nor seen it happen.

ETA: Adjusted it to state that some hens may engage in this behaviour, just as some may crow. It usually happens if the head hen is taking over the rooster duties.

Thanks for pointing that out! It really helped

The breeds (or crosses or types of hens) that I have noticed this behavior in....I have owed at least 10 hens in each breed.
Most that I have seen have been in American Game. Seeing 3 hens express this behavior; 1 to her rooster (she would also crow and would kill other hens and stags), the other two to other hens or stags (cockerels). Also 1 BSL that was with a rooster and 12 other hens (she was the head hen), and 1 OEGB that was with a rooster and two other hens....both of these hens only showed this behavior to the lesser hens or pullets. I don't recall anymore occurrences. I don't think that I ever made videos of this, but if it does ever happen again I will try to remember this thread and make a video. I have never noticed this behavior in my Speckled Sussex as of yet, I have only seen they to show the average hen asserting dominance, what you would think of for pecking order.
All of the hens showing the dance, have all laid eggs and most have hatched their own chicks.

Maybe it's just me or I just have some hormonal hens.

But, that is 5 hens out of over 150 hens (or maybe more than that) After 9 years of keeping chickens I have really lost count of how many total.

 

[aoxa]

Quote:
Do you mind stating those breeds? I have a really bossy head hen and have never seen her do the wing cutting. I will note in the thread that some game breeds can do this, but have never heard, nor seen it happen.

ETA: Adjusted it to state that some hens may engage in this behaviour, just as some may crow. It usually happens if the head hen is taking over the rooster duties.

Thanks for pointing that out! It really helped

The breeds (or crosses or types of hens) that I have noticed this behavior in....I have owed at least 10 hens in each breed.
Most that I have seen have been in American Game. Seeing 3 hens express this behavior; 1 to her rooster (she would also crow and would kill other hens and stags), the other two to other hens or stags (cockerels). Also 1 BSL that was with a rooster and 12 other hens (she was the head hen), and 1 OEGB that was with a rooster and two other hens....both of these hens only showed this behavior to the lesser hens or pullets. I don't recall anymore occurrences. I don't think that I ever made videos of this, but if it does ever happen again I will try to remember this thread and make a video. I have never noticed this behavior in my Speckled Sussex as of yet, I have only seen they to show the average hen asserting dominance, what you would think of for pecking order.
All of the hens showing the dance, have all laid eggs and most have hatched their own chicks.

Maybe it's just me or I just have some hormonal hens.

But, that is 5 hens out of over 150 hens (or maybe more than that) After 9 years of keeping chickens I have really lost count of how many total.

I actually see my hens fighting much more than my roosters do. Their dynamics are probably more complicated than we can imagine.

I just witness my silkie pullet attacking my dog. It was the strangest thing.

While you are here, what is the youngest you have noticed mating? My 5 month old barred rock JUST started wing cutting for the girls in the morning. Doesn't seem to get their attention like it does for my older rooster

 

[Lisa0318]

LOL.... I have a buff brahmas rooster and a buff silkie hen and for some reason my brahma rooster mates with her even tho he has his own big girls, im afraid he will hurt her but hes very gentle with her.
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[jeslewmazer]

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Every once and a while, some of my chickens will have a stare down with my dogs and cats. The dogs and cats have learned to sit like a statue or haul tail so not to provoke an attack.

5 months is the youngest for the most part, and 6-7 months being the average. I have only 1 younger than 5months, but of course he was not fertile. Young wanting to mate never seem to the first pick when other more mature roos are around. Some of my hens will fight the young ones. If they can beat the hen, then she is more willing to allow him to mate her. Just because a rooster is young, under a year old (cockerel), does not mean that he does not get to mate. They will be sneaky and catch a hen off guard and try to top her. It was funny one time I had a young one around 7 months old and every hen he tried beat him. One day he tried to be sneaky and he finally found a hen to top. Right after he got of he had to take of (and squawking), because the hen turned around on him and knocked him good.

 

[aoxa]

Quote:
Every once and a while, some of my chickens will have a stare down with my dogs and cats. The dogs and cats have learned to sit like a statue or haul tail so not to provoke an attack.

5 months is the youngest for the most part, and 6-7 months being the average. I have only 1 younger than 5months, but of course he was not fertile. Young wanting to mate never seem to the first pick when other more mature roos are around. Some of my hens will fight the young ones. If they can beat the hen, then she is more willing to allow him to mate her. Just because a rooster is young, under a year old (cockerel), does not mean that he does not get to mate. They will be sneaky and catch a hen off guard and try to top her. It was funny one time I had a young one around 7 months old and every hen he tried beat him. One day he tried to be sneaky and he finally found a hen to top. Right after he got of he had to take of (and squawking), because the hen turned around on him and knocked him good.

Good to know!

My cockerel (BR) has started mating only one of my older BR girls. He tries with the younger ones, but they are so not willing. What's really strange is that since he has started mating her (last weekend was the first time) she started to lay eggs again for the first time in months! What is up with that?! I thought someone new started to lay because my BR is very unreliable. I don't add light to their coop, so they only get about 7-8 hours of light a day. All of a sudden we are getting eggs again. I can't complain, but what is your theory on that? I didn't know a rooster mating could encourage a hen to lay.. Am I totally off bounds on saying that? I can tell you my hen was VERY excited when the deed was done. I have never witnessed such a shake in my life!

My poodle is now TERRIFIED of the chickens. I have to keep her away from them. I don't want her to attack them out of fear. There was never any issues before this pullet pecked her. She got the dog pretty good too. I don't see many posts about dog attacked by chicken. Only vice versa.