As this post is focussed on Silkies I thought I’d write of my experience so other newbies like me are armed with as much information as possible.
I was given 11 Silkie eggs from a couple who live along the coast from us. They show their birds and have an impeccable reputation. I think if you CAN travel for the eggs/chicks that is preferable to posting them.
After a promised brooder didn’t materialise I bought a small incubator (with turner mechanism) and set it up on the end of my kitchen worktop.
Neither of us have any experience of keeping chickens so we were delighted to have 7 hatch out of the 11 eggs. The last pipped his shell, then cheeped for 24 hours (a very stressful time!!) and so my husband picked him out with a pair of tweezers, over the course of another 12 hours!
They were born over the course of two days, on the 28th and 29th June 2017. Two pullets and FIVE cockerels
My brooder was a strong cardboard box in the kitchen. I’ll add pictures so you can see the set up. I do have lots of video clips but they’re not loading
They had Food and water available 24/7 and were cleaned out daily. Water had to be replaced twice a day and so if I did it again I’d use water nipples as recommended on here.
It was a lovely summer so they went out in their coop at about two months old with wood shaving bedding. I was told that they don’t roost so I left the low posts in (and yup, they don’t use ‘em) they like to hunker down together in the deep bedding.
The first born, a huge bird, was a cockerel and he was ‘the main man!’ ......so there was no fighting from the five guys. I’ve read on here that there is less fighting from cockerels if they’re from the same clutch. I found that to be correct.......HOWEVER, I did rehome four of them nearly three weeks ago. I was lucky, the ‘egg donor’ took them back
So, born on 28th June and I got my first cockadoodledo on the 18th December
I was in the office overlooking the garden and I thought someone was strangling my chickens!! It sounded like a cat drowning in porridge!!!!!!!!
My lone rooster now owns the garden. His garden. His girls. And he’s been renamed. ‘Sheldon’ is now ‘Kung Poo’ because he has attitude.
He’s taken a dislike to both of my grown up sons so don’t think Silkie roosters are sweet little treasures
We ‘walk through’ him and are very strict not to pet him and have cut out his bolshy behaviour. He stands back now when we feed the girls mealworms and treats so advice taken on here of rooster behaviour has worked!!
I got my first egg three days ago and have had one every day since.
