Black silkies

[Gordonhillfarm]

oh the waiting is the hardest

 

[silkieluver_07]

Quote:
ok so i got my hatch dates messed up and buff orps, blue black standard cochins are hatching. One liitle lone blue silkie was in this batch and hatched. Perfect toe spacing and foot feathering!!!

 

[destiny_56085]

Picture time.....

Just had a tiny batch come out of the shell this morning. Only 2 blacks, 1 blue, and a few whites this time.

From the garage growout pen.... Youngest babies are barely a month and oldest will be 3 months on March 6th. Lil buggers have alot of filling out to do yet. Only off-color on them is the result of the yellowish cast from the heat lamps. It was -7 F this morning up here in MN.

 

[rilly10]

Very nice! Beautiful babies! I'll take all the blacks and the precious little blue LOL!

 

[Teresaann24]

Quote:
I am loving your nice clean buff baby! I also see lots of pullets in your grown out pen.

 

[destiny_56085]

G'morning!

Kept back 18 so far in that age range. 7 are for sure cockerels so far and possibly more. 2 of the blues are clearly male already. Its a different bloodline on those and fairly easy to tell. On the blacks and whites though it will be until they are in the 6+ month range to tell on some. Those lines keep the huge rounded crests on the males and the whites especially have smaller combs. Not a single splash made the cut... On the buff, I'm using a new cockerel this year and the chicks have all been coming out clear so far. More problems with the underfluff being too light and skin color back to mulberry though. On the blacks I've only had 2 miscolored ones so far. Upon feathering out, they looked almost more like a dark partridge instead.

Don't worry Rilly...have you down for chicks for later this spring. Its way too cold for the girls to be laying much or to even ship anything yet. New baby is due any day too so that might put a hamper on things for a while too.

 

[chikincrazee]

HI love those babies i have a bunch of coming 4 week old ones in my basement...i wanted to ask Destiny is your garage heated as we have an attached garage but it is not heated and i was wondering if you can safely brood chicks in there if you keep them draft free and under a heat source my barn is warm about 45-50 and i usually put them out there under a sweeter heater at a month of age but the garage is closer and i could have more..oops did i just write that....i mean i could get them out of the basement quicker maybe at 2 weeks instead of 4...Chris

 

[destiny_56085]

Our garage isn't heated.... It isn't even insulated. Lovely MN temps have dropped to the -30's some nights. I have 2 of the 250 watt heat lamps back in the main part of the brooder and another 125 watt on the waterer to keep that open. The key is having enough of the lamps so all the birds can get under them. No drafts either....brooder walls are solid and garage doors are not opened very often. I keep the bedding at least 6-12" deep so they aren't directly on the cement floor. On the babies ages, I generally don't move them out there (at this time of the year anyway) til they have lost most of the chick fuzz and are fairly feathered out.... 4-5 weeks generally. If I have some of the older birds in there, I don't worry quite as much since those younger ones curl up under them. I do lose a few from getting squished under the heap. I have a separate room in the basement set up for brooding too. Lots of daily cleaning!

 

[averytds]

To combat basement dust we run 2 of those Oreck air cleaners 24/7 except once a month for cleaning the filters and hit everything with the shopvac once a week. That's cut the dust by more than half.


We're also trying a different bedding experiment...pellet/shaving mix that gets hit a couple times a week with Poultry Protector.

 

[Darling Farms]

Can I say... LOVING this thread!

Glad to hear about people raising black silkies just for the sake of black silkies.

They are by far my husbands favorite color and are growing on me more and more each day.

I don't know about everyone else... but our have such a nice temperament. They also NEVER sit. Has anyone else found that about theirs?

This spring we are breeding them to our lavenders but after that we will be going back to working on just black to black for a few seasons.

We are trying a spiral breeding program (or rotational line breeding) with three separate lines... any silkie breeders have any experience with that?

Here are some pictures of ours...

~Darling Farms