Silkies, Showgirls, & Seramas - 12 weeks old

[Chickeria]

Bantam Cochin do make great parrots!

That's so cute

 

[MixedFlock23]

Updates: the seramas are both laying! (1st egg Nov 15; 24 weeks old) Teeny, the frizzled, loves us and rode around in my pocket today! Tiny, the smooth feathered one, is very shy, but allows being touched when she’s on the roost at night.
The showgirl female isn’t laying yet. The showgirl male crows & is nice to everyone people & chickens alike. He is in the main coop/run with hens & pullets. The brown Silkie pullet isn’t laying yet either. She tolerates having her beak trimmed to keep the crossbeak in check. The white cockerel Silkie was tasty soup last month. The black cockerel Silkie is in a separate but adjoining pen with two of his own hens. Neither cockerel has made any advances on the ladies... so I guess I’ll keep waiting to see, but so far, they are keepers!! (I won’t keep an animal that attacks my children; thus the reason for soup on October 3rd.)

 

[MixedFlock23]

Final update:
Less than a month after my last update, all 4 pullets are laying now, and the serama sisters decided to have some chicks without my permission. Ha ha. I got sick in December and only checked food & water once daily (mornings) instead of also counting all my chickens and collecting eggs during a second trip to the coop (night)… well, several days later when I was feeling well enough to go out again at night, Teeny was sitting on 9 serama eggs! I candled them that day (12/14/21) & 7 were growing. I let her hatch them & 5 chicks hatched 12/31/21. One stopped growing around a week in incubation & the other died from a ruptured yolk sac near hatch. One naked neck. All 5 are frizzled. Two light, two black, one brown. Two have 5 toes like Daddy. Some have dark Silkie like skin, others have light skin. They live in the house in a closet right now since it’s so cold outside. (Closet doors open by day & closed at sunset to help them sleep.) They are serama/Silkie showgirl mixes. (Plus whatever other genetics gave my frizzled serama her curly feather mix & crest) I didn’t even know our 6 month old cockerel was courting the ladies yet! Whoops!

All five are crested like mom & frizzled (one is actually frazzle, but I’m fairly sure it’s a male & will become a soup). I didn’t intend to let my chickens breed at all & I know not to bred two frizzles for this very reason.

They are just over a month old now. I’m fairly confident that Brownie is a female; I’m pretty sure both Rascal & Mirabel are males, based on their large red (walnut?) combs. Peaches has no comb (like Brownie), but also is the largest and stands tall, so that one confuses me. Raya is the only one with a straight comb like momma and I’m hoping Raya is a female despite the red at the comb base. Both her mom & aunt (Teeny & Tiny) had combs fairly identical to Raya’s at 3 weeks old. I thought they were both boys since they had red comb bases & red faces beginning at 3 weeks old.
Attached pic is baby pics & @31 days old. Feel free to guess genders & comment.

 

[Chickeria]

Updates: the seramas are both laying! (1st egg Nov 15; 24 weeks old) Teeny, the frizzled, loves us and rode around in my pocket today! Tiny, the smooth feathered one, is very shy, but allows being touched when she’s on the roost at night.
The showgirl female isn’t laying yet. The showgirl male crows & is nice to everyone people & chickens alike. He is in the main coop/run with hens & pullets. The brown Silkie pullet isn’t laying yet either. She tolerates having her beak trimmed to keep the crossbeak in check. The white cockerel Silkie was tasty soup last month. The black cockerel Silkie is in a separate but adjoining pen with two of his own hens. Neither cockerel has made any advances on the ladies... so I guess I’ll keep waiting to see, but so far, they are keepers!! (I won’t keep an animal that attacks my children; thus the reason for soup on October 3rd.)

Omg they do have developed so well! Gorgeous
Congrats on these super cute little eggs! So tiny! Teeny looks proud
I love that Teeny loves to be carried around in your pocket, that's adorable!
That's great that you do care so well for your little cross-beak
I'm sorry to hear your white Silkie cockerel attacked your childeren. I fully understand that this can't be tolerated.
I do have five bantam Silkie cockerels (they will be one year old in April) and till now they are all very sweet, non aggression etc. 1 is with my girls, 4 are a boygroup. I hope your little Showgirl- boy and your black Silkie cockerel remain sweet and amicable.

I love the group picture

Final update:
Less than a month after my last update, all 4 pullets are laying now, and the serama sisters decided to have some chicks without my permission. Ha ha. I got sick in December and only checked food & water once daily (mornings) instead of also counting all my chickens and collecting eggs during a second trip to the coop (night)… well, several days later when I was feeling well enough to go out again at night, Teeny was sitting on 9 serama eggs! I candled them that day (12/14/21) & 7 were growing. I let her hatch them & 5 chicks hatched 12/31/21. One stopped growing around a week in incubation & the other died from a ruptured yolk sac near hatch. One naked neck. All 5 are frizzled. Two light, two black, one brown. Two have 5 toes like Daddy. Some have dark Silkie like skin, others have light skin. They live in the house in a closet right now since it’s so cold outside. (Closet doors open by day & closed at sunset to help them sleep.) They are serama/Silkie showgirl mixes. (Plus whatever other genetics gave my frizzled serama her curly feather mix & crest) I didn’t even know our 6 month old cockerel was courting the ladies yet! Whoops!

All five are crested like mom & frizzled (one is actually frazzle, but I’m fairly sure it’s a male & will become a soup). I didn’t intend to let my chickens breed at all & I know not to bred two frizzles for this very reason.

They are just over a month old now. I’m fairly confident that Brownie is a female; I’m pretty sure both Rascal & Mirabel are males, based on their large red (walnut?) combs. Peaches has no comb (like Brownie), but also is the largest and stands tall, so that one confuses me. Raya is the only one with a straight comb like momma and I’m hoping Raya is a female despite the red at the comb base. Both her mom & aunt (Teeny & Tiny) had combs fairly identical to Raya’s at 3 weeks old. I thought they were both boys since they had red comb bases & red faces beginning at 3 weeks old.
Attached pic is baby pics & @31 days old. Feel free to guess genders & comment.

Oh wow - surprise babies
Yeah, I did read several times that Seramas are very determined broodies
I also did read that Frizzles sometimes need longer to feather in - perhaps your little one you are thinking Frazzle just needs a bit more time?
I have no clue about possible genders yet - I think it is really difficult not only because of their young age, but also because they are mixes and very different features can show.
They are very cute

 

[MixedFlock23]

Omg they do have developed so well! Gorgeous
Congrats on these super cute little eggs! So tiny! Teeny looks proud
I love that Teeny loves to be carried around in your pocket, that's adorable!
That's great that you do care so well for your little cross-beak
I'm sorry to hear your white Silkie cockerel attacked your childeren. I fully understand that this can't be tolerated.
I do have five bantam Silkie cockerels (they will be one year old in April) and till now they are all very sweet, non aggression etc. 1 is with my girls, 4 are a boygroup. I hope your little Showgirl- boy and your black Silkie cockerel remain sweet and amicable.

I love the group picture



Oh wow - surprise babies
Yeah, I did read several times that Seramas are very determined broodies
I also did read that Frizzles sometimes need longer to feather in - perhaps your little one you are thinking Frazzle just needs a bit more time?
I have no clue about possible genders yet - I think it is really difficult not only because of their young age, but also because they are mixes and very different features can show.
They are very cute

I wish I had read that about Seramas! I would have sent my kids or hubby out to collect eggs when I was weak & achy! Oh well! We are enjoying the little surprises.

So far, so good with Rooster Ray Monkey Llama the Showgirl cockerel and Shushpop the Silkie cockerel (my kids name all our critters). They are not curious like the girls and don’t come to us even when we have treats… which is working out well for all of us. I hope they remain this way. Super sweet to their ladies & respectful of people. (Ray has 17 ladies in the main coop & Shushpop has two hens in the small coop.) Both cockerels will call the girls over for scratch/treats and let them eat first… and they must get consent before mating because we never hear distraught pullets/hens or see them run away like we did with the prior cockerels we tried to keep. (A huge reason we didn’t even realize we could even have fertile eggs that soon! We never saw or heard anything! Still don’t.)

In the fall of 2020, we got a Silkie chick from a local breeder that was supposed to be frizzle, but his feather barbs just kept breaking off and it looked like he had fingers instead of wings since only the quill/rachis remained. I assumed Curly was a frazzle not frizzle. We culled him after he began attacking the children around 9 months old. He was also unable to gain weight & was the only one failing to thrive. I’ve read frazzles often have health issues as well as fragile feathers from the double frizzle genes.

Little Mirabel is feathering out like Curly did, so that’s why I’m concerned. Mirabel is also very small compared to its siblings. This mornings weight was 96 grams. (Other chicks are 116, 119, 131, & 132.)

We will give them time to grow though & enjoy this stage.

 

[Chickeria]

I wish I had read that about Seramas! I would have sent my kids or hubby out to collect eggs when I was weak & achy! Oh well! We are enjoying the little surprises.

So far, so good with Rooster Ray Monkey Llama the Showgirl cockerel and Shushpop the Silkie cockerel (my kids name all our critters). They are not curious like the girls and don’t come to us even when we have treats… which is working out well for all of us. I hope they remain this way. Super sweet to their ladies & respectful of people. (Ray has 17 ladies in the main coop & Shushpop has two hens in the small coop.) Both cockerels will call the girls over for scratch/treats and let them eat first… and they must get consent before mating because we never hear distraught pullets/hens or see them run away like we did with the prior cockerels we tried to keep. (A huge reason we didn’t even realize we could even have fertile eggs that soon! We never saw or heard anything! Still don’t.)

In the fall of 2020, we got a Silkie chick from a local breeder that was supposed to be frizzle, but his feather barbs just kept breaking off and it looked like he had fingers instead of wings since only the quill/rachis remained. I assumed Curly was a frazzle not frizzle. We culled him after he began attacking the children around 9 months old. He was also unable to gain weight & was the only one failing to thrive. I’ve read frazzles often have health issues as well as fragile feathers from the double frizzle genes.

Little Mirabel is feathering out like Curly did, so that’s why I’m concerned. Mirabel is also very small compared to its siblings. This mornings weight was 96 grams. (Other chicks are 116, 119, 131, & 132.)

We will give them time to grow though & enjoy this stage.

It was meant to happen/they were meant to happen
Rooster Ray Monkey Llama and Sushpop (their names made me smile) sound like really good boys - definitely keepers.
I'm sorry about your little Curly.
Hopefully your little Mirabel will catch up and grow strong feathers/feathers that will not break off I'm rooting for this little one!

 

[MixedFlock23]

It was meant to happen/they were meant to happen
Rooster Ray Monkey Llama and Sushpop (their names made me smile) sound like really good boys - definitely keepers.
I'm sorry about your little Curly.
Hopefully your little Mirabel will catch up and grow strong feathers/feathers that will not break off I'm rooting for this little one!

Thank you!
My kids named them. Not sure what they were thinking with RRML, but Shushpop is named so because when he learned to crow, he did so with his beak shut! That made them think of how I give them popsicles and they call them shush pops because it makes them hush up for a few minutes. After what seemed like a few months of muted crowing, he now crows with his beak open, but his name stuck!

 

[MixedFlock23]

Link to the thread about those newest chicks:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/surprise-winter-chicks-.1509921/

 

[MixedFlock23]

Nearly 9 months old…
Rooster Ray Monkey Llama (the Showgirl cockerel) is in with the main flock & is quite the gentleman. (He’s very ugly too, in my opinion, but the chickens don’t seem to mind his looks.)

Teeny (frizzle serama) & Tiny (smooth serama) went broody & have the five chicks I mentioned above. Chicks are nearly 8 weeks old but still with Teeny in the shed.

Shushpop (black Silkie cockerel) is in the small run/coop with my two black sex links.

Both Starlight (showgirl pullet) & Twilight (partridge Silkie) are broody but I daily take eggs from them.

That’s all of them! I’m hoping the two cockerels continue to mature into sweet roosters! I really want to keep them.

 

[Chickeria]

Nearly 9 months old…
Rooster Ray Monkey Llama (the Showgirl cockerel) is in with the main flock & is quite the gentleman. (He’s very ugly too, in my opinion, but the chickens don’t seem to mind his looks.)

Teeny (frizzle serama) & Tiny (smooth serama) went broody & have the five chicks I mentioned above. Chicks are nearly 8 weeks old but still with Teeny in the shed.

Shushpop (black Silkie cockerel) is in the small run/coop with my two black sex links.

Both Starlight (showgirl pullet) & Twilight (partridge Silkie) are broody but I daily take eggs from them.

That’s all of them! I’m hoping the two cockerels continue to mature into sweet roosters! I really want to keep them.

That's great that Ray Monkey Llama and Sushpop are developing so promising! I really hope they will stay sweet and you can keep them
Omg your broodies I do have one broody Silkie at the moment, my tiny black girl, Schorschette.