Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

This thread needs an awakening! Jingle and Jangle got baths tonight so I took a few pictures for critiquing and gender guesses
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They are 11 weeks old now! Man does time fly! I'm really excited about Jangle, to me she looks VERY promising, what does everyone else think? Also, what do you think about Jingle's crest? no matter how much I "messify" it, it always goes right back to looking like she just came from the hairdresser
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Is that a bad trait to have such a neat crest?
Jingle is the blue, and Jangle is actually jet black but unfortunately the flash makes her look dark blue no matter how much I try to edit it.

Jingle






Jangle














Those combs and swept back crests say boy to me. The Black is obviously out of BBS breeding, and is really not a true black. You are seeing blue under fluff in the photos, not black.A true black is black to the roots.
 
I do check under hens when they are on eggs, but I've never had an issue with babies being shrink wrapped before; when I last checked, none of the eggs under her were pipped. Nothing was different than I've done before. She has one more egg, and I have several newly hatched chicks from the incubator that I am going to try to give her. Just frustrating to encounter a problem that I've never had with a broody before.
I know this was a couple of weeks ago, just catching up, but I had a hen abandon an egg that had pipped externally and had been off nest for a couple of hours(this was 4 weeks ago). I grabbed the egg thinking it was a quitter, heard a peep from inside. So real quick took it over to another broody that was hatching and had one more to hatch. The egg hatched and the chick's name is Miracle. I totally thought the chick for sure would have been shrink wrapped after being out from under the hen for hours and had pipped.

Has any one done a silkie autopsy? I had my first unexpected death and performed an autopsy. I have butchered many birds in my life time and this was a bit unnerving. The color is so odd and I wonder if internal organs can be different colors too. The heart was very pale in color and surrounded by a large bag of fluid so I am sure it was heart disease of some kind.
I have done 3 for the reasons that you know(won't discuss that on this thread) and processed one for eating. Yes the organs are different color but in the same place as normal chickens. If there was a sack of fluid around the heart then I would agree with your diagnosis. I am still learning what is and is not normal in the Silkies organs. Gonna have another cock to process in the next few months(over two years old and throwing dirty Buff chicks)
 
Fellow silkie lovers! I started a thread for all of us who are incubating, brooding and hatching chicks this month and into the New Year. Please join us and share your pictures, comments, questions and knowledge. There will be folks over there who are new to hatching, those who have hatched only a few times and folks who are hatching gurus. Please be supportive, helpful and patient. Good luck and hope to see many pics of Holiday Chicks!
Best wishes,
Tina Gabel

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/841353/silkie-holiday-hatch-a-long
 
This thread needs an awakening! Jingle and Jangle got baths tonight so I took a few pictures for critiquing and gender guesses
smile.png
They are 11 weeks old now! Man does time fly! I'm really excited about Jangle, to me she looks VERY promising, what does everyone else think? Also, what do you think about Jingle's crest? no matter how much I "messify" it, it always goes right back to looking like she just came from the hairdresser
roll.png
Is that a bad trait to have such a neat crest?
Jingle is the blue, and Jangle is actually jet black but unfortunately the flash makes her look dark blue no matter how much I try to edit it.

Jingle






Jangle















From the roundness of the top of the combs they both look like boys to me.

Hmmmm....always hard with pics but the first one looks feminine and the second one looks more like a boy to me. The comb on the lighter one is a little big but comb size often varies with lines, I have found. They are some chesty little buggers...may I ask what line(s)? They look very filled out for only eleven weeks. They are cute!
 
Hmmmm....always hard with pics but the first one looks feminine and the second one looks more like a boy to me. The comb on the lighter one is a little big but comb size often varies with lines, I have found. They are some chesty little buggers...may I ask what line(s)? They look very filled out for only eleven weeks. They are cute!
I'm honestly not sure
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I had 3 roosters at the time, a birchen sizzle, a black hatchery non-bearded, and a white bearded catdance. I didn't think my white was smart enough to breed lol, but I caught him mating with one of my sizzle hens the other day so it's possible. The hen is Icelynn my blue, she is from my friend Tammy Turner, but I don't know where she got her stock from. I know she had gotten some from Kate Morrealle a while back so she may be from her lines.
 
I show silkies and they are very cute. Showing silkies they need to have 5 toes and a walnut come not a single comb
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Yes
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along with a lot of other technical details LOL
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Though I have come to find out recently Silkie Standards vary GREATLY continent to continent! I have friends in the UK who have show winning silkies that we here in the USA would call pet or hatchery quality! But it's how they are bred. We here in the USA really like to make things flashy!
 
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My white chick is getting so big now! It's so hard to tell the sex of it. I'll have to post some pics for y'all! I'll have to get them tomorrow. At first I thought it was a boy and now I'm just thinking it's a female, but I still don't know! Lol!
 
Does anyone have any smooth silkies? If so, can smooth silkies be put in shows, or do they count as "muts". Im in love with my smooth splash silkie Roo and would maybe want to take him to a show later on when he is fully developed/matured. Is he show quality? he has a nice rounded crest and some beautiful shimmery black feathers that look turquoise in the sunlight:) He hasn't developed his comb or waddles much yet, but I know he is a he due to his streamers and he crowed today for the first time:)
 

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