Are these actually silkies?

[Capricoco]

I have these two roosters I hatched out, and I’m not sure if they’re actually silkies or not. To me, they’ve always looked off for supposedly being fully silkie, but I posted about it on here and was told they were silkies for sure, however this was when they were small cockerels. They’re full grown now, and I’m still not sure. They both have silkie feathering, one’s black and one’s blue, they both have this gold/blonde leakage on the back of their neck. The black rooster has a walnut comb and a larger crest, while the blue one has what I think is a pea comb and a pretty small crest. Neither really have blue ear lobes, and their skin isn’t really a mulberry color, instead it’s just kind of gray(on their face). They have different looking tails too. The only other mothers that they could have are a silver sebright hen(I’m pretty sure she doesn’t lay) and a silver laced Polish hen.

black

blue

dad

mom(?)

 

[EggSighted4Life]

To me, they’ve always looked off for supposedly being fully silkie,

All quality issues.. NOT breed issues.

Some are differences in variety.. it's easier to get the blue lobes in white birds but harder to get dark mulberry combs.

Mulberry will only be on the comb and wattles.. the other skin is dark.. technically black.. but ya greyish looking. They are supposed to be melanistic like Ayam Cemani.

Walnut being a cross of pea and cushion (or strawberry, icr) makes it unsurprising that a pea would pop up on occasion and I see strait combed (hatchery) Silkies all the time. It is incorrect, and not preferred for breeding, possibly a dq for showing.. but it doesn't change the breed.

They have poor crest.. on par with hatchery quality birds.. and are looking mostly non bearded.. I prefer bearded as far as that Silkie cuteness goes. Both bearded and non are accepted into the SOP.

Long story short they are not high quality according to the Standard of Perfection.. but they do appear to be pure bred Silkies... The solid tail feathers and lower wing feathers are normal..

Bred to seabright would be all solid feathers and NO silkied ones.

No rudeness meant here, they still look like lovely birds! The blue hen looks pretty nice. White can be hiding other colors underneath, so it might be a wild card.

 

[Capricoco]

The fa

All quality issues.. NOT breed issues.

Some are differences in variety.. it's easier to get the blue lobes in white birds but harder to get dark mulberry combs.

Mulberry will only be on the comb and wattles.. the other skin is dark.. technically black.. but ya greyish looking. They are supposed to be melanistic like Ayam Cemani.

Walnut being a cross of pea and cushion (or strawberry, icr) makes it unsurprising that a pea would pop up on occasion and I see strait combed (hatchery) Silkies all the time. It is incorrect, and not preferred for breeding, possibly a dq for showing.. but it doesn't change the breed.

They have poor crest.. on par with hatchery quality birds.. and are looking mostly non bearded.. I prefer bearded as far as that Silkie cuteness goes. Both bearded and non are accepted into the SOP.

Long story short they are not high quality according to the Standard of Perfection.. but they do appear to be pure bred Silkies... The solid tail feathers and lower wing feathers are normal..

Bred to seabright would be all solid feathers and NO silkied ones.

No rudeness meant here, they still look like lovely birds! The blue hen looks pretty nice. White can be hiding other colors underneath, so it might be a wild card.

The faults almost certainly come from the father. He’s a broiler silkie (standard sized silkie for meat) after looking into it a little, they only loosely conform to silkie traits. Now the question is what do I do with them lol.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

The fa

The faults almost certainly come from the father. He’s a broiler silkie (standard sized silkie for meat) after looking into it a little, they only loosely conform to silkie traits. Now the question is what do I do with them lol.

In the US there is only one standard which is bantam. There should be two as there can be quite the discrepancy in size.

When I was breeding them.. ALL the extra boys went to the freezer. They make perfectly good soup stock and shredded meat dishes.

On the other hand.. if I didn't have the time, energy, or desire to harvest then I'm not above humanely dispatching and composting them, feeding to another animal like the barn cat, local wild life, or my own dogs, etc.

I hesitate to rehome even to pet flocks because there's enough poor genetics floating around.

Best wishes!

 

[Capricoco]

In the US there is only one standard which is bantam. There should be two as there can be quite the discrepancy in size.

When I was breeding them.. ALL the extra boys went to the freezer. They make perfectly good soup stock and shredded meat dishes.

On the other hand.. if I didn't have the time, energy, or desire to harvest then I'm not above humanely dispatching and composting them, feeding to another animal like the barn cat, local wild life, or my own dogs, etc.

I hesitate to rehome even to pet flocks because there's enough poor genetics floating around.

Best wishes!

Some hatcheries sell them. I was gifted 6(as regular silkies), but a flash flood took out all of them except the white rooster in the pictures. I had no idea that he was a broiler silkie until a little while after these two hatched. They’re smaller than their father, but bigger than my bantam silkie rooster. I’m thinking probably freezer camp.