Silkie thread!

[Fizzybelle]

She is just adorable! Precious little creatures! If your little girl has layed her first eggs then she is probably at her maximum weight. I have one Silkie at 2.2-lb and the older Silkie is at 2.4-lb and they are 4 and 5 yrs old. They are impressive layers and lay the largest bantam egg. Our eggs average from 1.25 oz to sometimes 1.5 oz but 1.25 has been the norm. My first chickens were Silkies and I thought I needed some larger breeds for eggs. But I soon discovered the Silkies are tenacious layers at 4 to 5 eggs/weekly until they go broody. My older 5-yr-old Silkie still lays 4 to 5 eggs weekly. I don't mind when my Silkies go broody on an empty nest because it gives them a rest to replenish body nutrients from laying so many big eggs from such a little bird. When using Silkie eggs in cooking/baking we add a little store-bought egg whites to the recipe (the yolks are larger in a Silkie egg with less whites and the recipe might be too orange/tough without adding a little extra egg white. Personally I would not keep a Silkie alone in a LF flock. We keep 2 Silkies and 2 LF for a balance -- especially since one Silkie is more timid than the other. Ours aren't the best of buddies but they do tend to hang out together and being the older chickens in our flock they are the alphas. I am so tickled you love your little Silkie!

Is that a D'uccle in your avatar? I love the fluffy beard either way, very cute And thank you for the information!

Agnes isn't my only bantam, I do have a D'uccle and a Pekin as well, so she her has some buddies around her own size. We're also moving in 5 days and building two new pens and coops for them. Most likely the bantams will be kept separate from now of from the three larger fowl. There's too much pecking going on when the littlies are let out of their fenced off area, even though they grew up with one of the larger ones. Free-range time for the littlies is supervised though.
And yeh, Aggie's just a little sweetheart

(though I of course love all of my chickens very much). I love watching her run, those fluffy little feet bouncing over the grass always makes me smile. She loves eating sunflower seeds, but only if I've peeled them first, and likes to drink out of the lid of my water bottles. She'll peck the bottle to say, hey, I want a drink, fill it up, even if there's a dish of water right next to my chair. But that's the best part, learning all their little quirks. She's still making a lot of noise, but she's been working so hard, so I suppose she's entitled to brag (or vent, lol).

Such a fluffy little behind, love it! XD

 

[RhondaCaroline]

Hi All!
Wondering if there is anyone in the Indiana / Kentucky area with Silkies for sale (or plans to have Silkies for sale in the next month or so?)

We are looking for buff, lavender (self blue) and/or porcelain (blue cream) and nice quality.
Willing to consider chicks, juveniles or young adults.

We currently have 2 buff hens - so we would prefer a Lavender or Porcelain cockerel/rooster, but would consider a buff.
Would like to add a couple lavender or porcelain pullets/hens.

If we do chicks, would prefer a mix of 2-3 of the project colors.

Will also consider shipping depending on price and quality.

 

[Sylvester017]

Is that a D'uccle in your avatar? I love the fluffy beard either way, very cute And thank you for the information!
Hi - actually my avatar is our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana when she was just 5-mo-old. She was always hiding and to this day at 3-yrs-old loves to hang out under our chicken shelters or in the doghouses around the yard.

Agnes isn't my only bantam, I do have a D'uccle and a Pekin as well, so she her has some buddies around her own size.
That is so cute.

We're also moving in 5 days and building two new pens and coops for them. Most likely the bantams will be kept separate from now of from the three larger fowl. There's too much pecking going on when the littlies are let out of their fenced off area, even though they grew up with one of the larger ones. Free-range time for the littlies is supervised though.
Our first two Silkies were hatched with LFs but the LF chicks grew larger and faster than the Silkies and the Silkies eventually had to hide to keep from getting pecked by the larger chicks.
And yeh, Aggie's just a little sweetheart

(though I of course love all of my chickens very much). I love watching her run, those fluffy little feet bouncing over the grass always makes me smile. She loves eating sunflower seeds, but only if I've peeled them first, and likes to drink out of the lid of my water bottles. She'll peck the bottle to say, hey, I want a drink, fill it up, even if there's a dish of water right next to my chair. But that's the best part, learning all their little quirks. She's still making a lot of noise, but she's been working so hard, so I suppose she's entitled to brag (or vent, lol).

Such a fluffy little behind, love it! XD
Yes, we love all our chicken breeds too but Silkies definitely are one of the most adorable chickens on the Planet!

 

[chigrl1]

Hi all. My husband and I are getting silkies in a few months. We live in Los Angeles. The hatchery will not be giving mareks vaccines because they say the silkies are too small for the vaccine at 1 day old. So what's the best way and best age to vaccinate them after they arrive?

 

[joydix]

if you are picking them up at day 1 do it as soon as you get home. If coming by mail i would order from someone else where they do vaccinate. I hatch my own bantams and i vaccinate on the 2nd day to be sure they all hatch. my daughter is a nurse and she does it for me actually. Marrecks is a big problem in our area and i prefer to not take a chance. The vaccines from the hatcheries are much better than what a home flock owner can get tho, so another reason to order i guess. i have some coming from strombergs in april. i have ordered from Ideal and also McMurray....both about the same. i think if the place you ordered from is shipping them it would be too stressful on them to vaccinate when they arrive. the travel is hard on them.

 

[CandJFarm]

Can anyone tell me how to make a frizzled silkie....and a silkied serama.... I just hatched eggs from a frizzled cochin roo and a partrige silkie hen...the all have normal feathers no silkied 3 are frizzled all have leg feathers andbeards and after few weeks starting to get top hats

 

[QueenMisha]

Can anyone tell me how to make a frizzled silkie....and a silkied serama.... I just hatched eggs from a frizzled cochin roo and a partrige silkie hen...the all have normal feathers no silkied 3 are frizzled all have leg feathers andbeards and after few weeks starting to get top hats

As far as I know silkied Seramas either A. Have always had the silkied gene in their lineage or B. Were outcrossed to Silkies a very, very long time ago. To cross a Silkie and a Serama and get back to that body type I'd guess you're looking at, I don't know, a couple decades at the bare minimum, to produce to a reasonably Serama-like body type. Probably more like five or six to get a genuinely good bird.

Same thing with Sizzles but to a lesser extent. I know it takes just about 15 generations of breeding to get a reasonable quality of Sizzle. First generation "Sizzles" aren't sizzles, they're Cochin X Silkie crosses. Second generation, if you breed the offspring back to the Silkied parent, you still have Cochin X Silkie crosses, but now most of them will be silkie feathered.

Silkie feathering (gene symbol h) is a recessive gene. Here's a basic chart of how it works when outcrossing and back crossing. I think someone around here might have a picture chart as well, I know I've seen them for color crossing outcome explanations.

Silkie X Normal: 100% Normal carrying Silkie
Silkie X Carrier: 75% Silkie, 25% carrier
Silkie X Silkie: 100% Silkie
Carrier X Normal: 50% Carrier, 50% normal
Carrier X Carrier: 25% Silkie, 50% carrier, 25% normal
Normal X Normal: 100% normal

Some examples: The cross you just made would class as Silkie X Normal. (We're going to ignore the fact that he's frizzled for now as it doesn't have any effect on how the Silkie gene works.) So 100% of the offspring from that cross look Normal feathered, but are carrying the Silkie gene. That means that you can make several crosses of them to obtain Silkied offspring. One example would be to cross the males back to their Silkied mother - that's Silkie X Carrier and will give you 75% Silkie feathered offspring. Another thing you could do is cross the siblings with one another - brother X sister is a Carrier X Carrier mating, and that will give you 25% Silkie feathered offspring, 50% Carrier offspring, and 25% Normal.

As far as Frizzling goes, that's pretty simple. Frizzling is a semi-lethal, incomplete dominant gene (gene symbol F).

Frizzle X Normal: 50% frizzle, 50% normal offspring.
Frizzle X Frizzle: 100% Homozygous frizzle offspring. This is an undesirable cross, homozygous Frizzles don't do well.
Normal X Normal: 100% Normal.

 

[Coreenelane]

At what age do Silkies start laying? My silkies are 9 months old and no eggs. Have 2 black rooster 1 white rooster and 3 white hens and they are all kept with the other chickens 36 in all and everyone gets along extremely well. My sultans are laying and they are the same age.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

At what age do Silkies start laying? My silkies are 9 months old and no eggs. Have 2 black rooster 1 white rooster and 3 white hens  and they are all kept with the other chickens 36 in all and everyone gets along extremely well. My sultans are laying and they are the same age.

It could happen anytime now....or not. Most of my Silkies start start laying somewhere around 6-8 months. But, I've had a few wait more than a year before giving up that first egg...

 

[moomoodiddy]

if you are picking them up at day 1 do it as soon as you get home. If coming by mail i would order from someone else where they do vaccinate. I hatch my own bantams and i vaccinate on the 2nd day to be sure they all hatch. my daughter is a nurse and she does it for me actually. Marrecks is a big problem in our area and i prefer to not take a chance. The vaccines from the hatcheries are much better than what a home flock owner can get tho, so another reason to order i guess. i have some coming from strombergs in april. i have ordered from Ideal and also McMurray....both about the same. i think if the place you ordered from is shipping them it would be too stressful on them to vaccinate when they arrive. the travel is hard on them.

do the day old chicks that feed stores get in get vaccinated? If not what are the stats on the risks when not vaccinating? and where can I buy the vaccine. I have never got birds from a hatchery before and have never vaccinated before and never had a problem with anything besides coccio.