broken feathers on Silkie feet

[catwalk]

There are 40 days until my county's fair, and I am considering taking my only adult bird to a show! I bathed her today, and I found her ID clip on her wing, but I also found a lot of broken feathers on her feet and wings. I know that condition is really important in fancy schmancy classes. I couldn't possibly pull all of the offending feathers. Do they "heal"? She free ranges during the day, and hangs out in a tractor while I am at work. Is there something I can do to improve her condition, or am I SOL for this year? I have to register by this Friday. Thanks!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Foot feathers are really hard to pull.

 

[catwalk]

I don't think they look horrible, but I have nothing to compare them to. The Cochin chicks run around like they're wearing clown shoes; are Silkie toe feathers supposed to be really long? They're a bunch of three inch fluffy sticks.

 

[destiny_56085]

If it were my bird, I would leave it home. Even if you do bring it, you will be docked hardcore for condition. We pluck on our pigeons to get them ready for shows. We'll first clip them off and wait a week to pluck them. It takes roughly 6 weeks for those feathers to grow back in then. I know on our silkies that even breaking a foot feather will cause bleeding. I can't imagine pulling all those big feathers on them.

 

[destiny_56085]

Length and fullness wil be looked at by the judge. The important part is that there is feathering at least to that middle toe. As for condition, you have to take into consideration that it is still a show. If you leave them out to scratch around in the dirt, they will break those feathers off. If I were showing a maltese and it didn't have the long flowing hair cuz its been running out in the cockleburrs, do you honestly thing I would place in the show ring with that either? Silkies are an awesome breed, but very high maintenance if you want to keep them in condition for showing.

Here's pics from my baby pen. I'm prepping them for the show ring this fall. They are on 4-6" of shavings at all times. So far their foot feathers are all intact.

 

[catwalk]

Those babies look great! So now that I have a year and forty days to look good for the fair, I keep her on shavings?

 

[destiny_56085]

Here is a good pic from last fall of one of my birds with all his foot feathers too.... Lol yeah the buff turned out to be a cockerel of course.

This is one of the PQ partridge pullets too....nice feet though.

 

[destiny_56085]

Its up to you.... Personally I keep all my silkies on shavings. I know of another reputable breeder that lets hers out on grass with no problem too. Gravel is especially hard on our cochins and I can't imagine what it would do for the silkies. I've tried wire cages too and it keeps the birds clean because the feces falls though. However the tips of all the foot feathers get broken that way too. Do you want happy birds that can free range or do you want show birds?

 

[purplefrog]

I also keep my show silkies on deep sawdust. They still seem happy. One thing I did was to raise the feeder to chest level of the shortest silkie. That seemed to help with the scratching around for food and helped elimate feather breakage.

 

[catwalk]

Grrrr, I want both a happy hen that can frolic and a stunning show bird! I'll have to think about it. I'm making another pen for the Seramas, so next year I'll consider putting her in with more sedate birds and limiting her time out of it to lap time. Maybe by then someone will have developed feather extensions! Thank you everyone for your help plus pics!