Chickies, Chickies, Chickies!! Meet the new additions! (Pic heavy!)

[SilkiesForEver]

Okay, here we go. Side shot of Margaret/Marka's face:




Margaret/Marka's face, comb, wattles, and crest:




A closer look at his/her comb:




Coloration and shininess in the neck feathers:




Overall stance (he/she did not want to cooperate so this is the best I got):

I am almost sure that is a pullet. How old is she? I'll try to give you a comparison of my Silkie roo at that age..

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The guy said 13-15 weeks when I got him so 16-18 weeks old now. Thing is, I've looked at pictures, and some are very obvious by now, but others are not so obvious until later. I am not holding out much hope that Marka is still Margaret. :/

 

[SilkiesForEver]

The guy said 13-15 weeks when I got him so 16-18 weeks old now. Thing is, I've looked at pictures, and some are very obvious by now, but others are not so obvious until later. I am not holding out much hope that Marka is still Margaret.

Ok, I think my rooster was pretty obvious at that age... Lemme find a picture..

Alright, so here he is at 6 1/2 months old.



This isn't the greatest picture, but here he is at 3 1/2 months old.



And here he is at 4 months.



You can see the reddness in his comb here.




Hope these helped!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah, the comb size is similar. Marka/Margaret is not as red, but still has a comb width and reddishness that is suspect. No streamers, but it looks like he might have some coming in.


Even more curiously, he moved out into the chicken yard today in his own fenced off area, but the pullets all flew over to eat from his feeder. Interestingly enough, they beat up on him and kept him from eating until they left. :/ Then Po was chirping and Marka/Margaret was going over to him, and when Marka/Margaret got close, Po would wing-dance... Ugh, I just don't know on this bird! My gut says he's a cockerel, though.

 

[SilkiesForEver]

Yeah, the comb size is similar. Marka/Margaret is not as red, but still has a comb width and reddishness that is suspect. No streamers, but it looks like he might have some coming in.


Even more curiously, he moved out into the chicken yard today in his own fenced off area, but the pullets all flew over to eat from his feeder. Interestingly enough, they beat up on him and kept him from eating until they left.

Then Po was chirping and Marka/Margaret was going over to him, and when Marka/Margaret got close, Po would wing-dance... Ugh, I just don't know on this bird!

My gut says he's a cockerel, though.

All of what you described makes me think pullet. I don't know... hopefully she's still Margaret!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Here, you can go weigh in. I'm just not sure anymore, so I made a thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/815820/16-18-week-old-silkie-is-he-a-she

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Man, oh man! I have 3 votes for pullet and 3 votes for cockerel on this Silkie! Nobody knows!


Well, at any rate, I have yet another new addition of sorts--a coop addition! This was built specifically so that there would be room for these little ones in the coop. It has 5 windows, a dirt floor, a pop door leading into the chicken yard, and is completely secured with hardware cloth!

In other news, Po has started into his terrible teens! :/ He has been grabbing the pullets and yanking feathers out of them or hanging on while they try to run away. He has yet to get aggressive with them for not cooperating as Hika Ma has done, but I still don't like that they have to flee in fear or lose feathers to him. They should be squatting in a few more weeks--they're 14 weeks old today!--so I will give him a second chance then. For now, he is in a separate pen so that he can't grab the little girls.

Marka/Margaret, meanwhile, is still being beat up on by the pullets because I can't keep them out of his pen. He seems to have figured out that he can eat if he waits for the pullets to move on, but they chase him around and peck at him if they see him, poor little fluffy! At least the pullets are getting some confidence, right?

 

[Chickenfan4life]

Man, have you been busy! But nice coop!

That thing looks like a pretty good Fort Knox!

How long'd it take to build that thing?!

No wonder you haven't had time to RP...

*hint, hint

*

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

We did the foundation when the weather allowed over the summer, and then the rest of it in the past two weeks because that was all the time we had to do it. It's beautiful, though, isn't it?

(And yeah, I know. I've got to do some school work today, but I'll check in on the RP and see if I can reply.)


So I have had an eventful 24 hours, beside the fact that school started yesterday. To start, last night, Hika Ma finally pulled his last straw. I have been trying to be soothing and gentle with him, but his human shyness is not being resolved and I am fed up with dealing with him. He came flying out of his pen last night when I went to grab him to put him in his cat carrier for the night, and I had to hunt him down and catch him. Then when I did, he flailed and screamed and scratched up my wrist pretty good. I can't be dealing with this every day, especially with school and everything else I'll have to be doing for the next 16 weeks. So Hika Ma is bunking with demon-spawn hen Otus until we can build him his own pen. :/

Yeah, Otus. The only other options I had were to throw him in with one of the other roosters. I figured he would be safer with a hen, even if she is evil. Surprisingly, though, she isn't trying to kill him. They're both pretty much staying away from each other.


Then this morning, I started to make preparations for Marka/Margaret to come out into her usual area when I noticed that something had been digging in there. Upon further inspection, I found that some sort of hornet's nest had been dug up and they were swarming in the area. Obviously, I couldn't put dear Marka/Margaret in there to be stung up, so she is fenced off in the coop addition to keep the big girls from beating up on her. Oh, and since the pullets like to fly into that area, I'm having to check on them regularly and herd them out of there before they get stung. The hornets look like they are moving out, so it shouldn't be too long before that area is useable again.

The good news is that this explains something that had been bothering me. A while back, two of my hens had swollen faces from being stung by something, but I was feeling like this was rather coincidental and worrying that they may have caught something. Now I know there was a hornet nest in the chicken yard, so that kind of explains it.

 

[Chickenfan4life]

It is beautiful! Now make one for my girls!

And, Hika Ma sounds like the EE cockerels I've had, and they just get worse and worse, behavior-wise. We had to cull ours out because they wouldn't let the girls have a moment's rest, and eventually they had the poor biddies backs scratched bare. And then I couldn't let my guard down for a moment, once I was inside the coop.

I always had to carry a big stick. And these were cockerels whom had been handled with such gentleness, too. It made me mad to see how they acted towards me, after all the care I'd given them!

Anyways, I hope things do work out for you, but I have my doubts: no EE cockerel I've ever had was a nice one.

(It's fine. But I will look forward to your post!)