Could be a lot of things, could have been an injury to his back, could be he's developed a tumor that's pressing on something, could be Marek's, but that's like worst case and I wouldn't jump right to that conclusion. You might end up having to cull him and do a necropsy to find out what's going on if he doesn't improve over time.
That's too bad
. He is my second best bird!!!!
That's what I am afraid of.
Lots of luck!
Hope it turns out to be nothing serious. Did you try some vitamins? Nutridrench?
I love your story!
Thanks! Wow...now I know where the girl eggs went!I got lucky with Ruby's eggs!! I had 2 boys out of 10! I kept 3 girls and sold the rest as I don't plan to breed them!I love your story!
Ha!! I love it! I was sooo glad you decided to try with Ruby's eggs. Love that even Ken got hooked on silkies...lol I ended up with 4 out of 12 boys. Sold the 2 paint boys, kept Blooie and Shadow, lost my most beautiful girl about 4 months old I think it was after that mean mama biddy attacked her. Still brings tears to my eyes. So I have 7 girl's 2 boys. 21 developing eggs in the incubator, (15 day 14 and 6 day 7). I have 9 in storage from this past week and will be collecting all this week to set next Friday. Hopefully I will be able to fill all the orders I have so I can pick some out for myself. I'd like to have 10-12 girls because I plan to continue breeding in the future to sell.The Saga of the Silkies: Nothing to do with hatching - well, very little anyway - but I'm here to publicly harass the founders of this group!! Ha, report me if you feel you must! Shame on all of you. I had dismal hatches my first few attempts. I had two incubators and I was at the point where I was wondering how to turn them into flower pots. Then along came @AmyLynn2374 - "Try again, Blooie! You can do it, Blooie! Get some eggs from @RubyNala97 and Katie will get her Silkies, Blooie." But Gramma and Grampa didn't really WANT Silkies...... Now the Silkies were kinda sorta an accident! There were a couple of Silkie eggs in one of the failed hatches. I didn't realize how much our little granddaugher, Katie, wanted them until her big blue eyes filled with tears. And what kind of eggs did @RubyNala97 have? Why, Silkie eggs, of course. Uh oh. I didn't want Silkies - they reminded me of pocket lint with legs. Eye candy if you're into those fuzzy, fussy little things, good at 4H shows, and maybe as broodies or pets, but not my cup of tea when I had steady egg customers. But Katie won out. I ordered the eggs. They came so well packaged and so fresh I had to wait a couple of days to even SEE the air cells. This looked promising. I put them in the incubator and had a phenomenal hatch, with a lot of encouragement and instruction from my "pushers" - at least for me, with my track record, it was phenomenal. If I remember right, she sent 18 eggs. 13 hatched. Whoa.... We lost a few early on, at just a few days old, which was sad, but ultimately I remember that 9 made it out to the brooder! Ken kept grumbling, "What in the heck (or some word close to that) are we going to with these ugly things? Why Silkies, for crying out loud?" I never expected them to worm their fuzzy little way into our affections. The only real difficulty was sexing them - I never did get that right when they were young, except for Q-Tip, King Tut, and I think I called Dufus right. (NOTE - be careful when you give them haircuts and don't trim too close. It's a long time between molts...leave at least a few streamers so you can tell if you aren't real good at identifying combs) I posted pictures of my dopey little Silkies. We named every one of those bits of useless eye candy. My granddaughters cuddle those pocket lint critters, even my 5 year old with Spina Bifida and Autism. And so does KEN! Uh, huh...and he doesn't try to hide it anymore, either. I lost Q-Tip to a stupid, preventable accident and found one passed away in the coop last month, reason unknown. Late last fall I gave three of them to a little boy and his brothers, wanting a 4H project they could handle. So my grand total, I'm almost ashamed to say, is 4 Silkies left and every single one of them are roos. Boy, can I sex them Silkies or what? Smudge, Ruby, King Tut and Dufus are boys. Not a Silkie girl on the place. So we got a call last night from the aunt of the little fellers that still have the two other roos....do I have any more and would I sell them? She'd ordered 15 Silkie babies, sexed to be pullets (Yeah, good luck with that!) and everyone in the family loves the ones I gave the boys so much that they want to raise more of them, split between three families. Knowing this entire family well, and how well cared for they'd be, I agreed. I kept King Tut and Smudge. What do I need 4 Silkie roos for when I have no little ladies for them? Oh, I suppose one of them could stand on another's shoulders to mate with Tank, but, um, well, she's a standard sized Brahma and I don't see that ending well for the guys. I was a little sad about letting them go, but at the same time it felt like the right thing to do, you know? So, aside from the 2 admittedly adorable roos I have left, that's all of the useless pocket lint left out there. I won't take on a hatch right now because I just don't have the time with Kendra's increasing needs, and I worry that focus might be an issue. (If I did, there's only one place I'd ever get Silkie eggs again, EVAH, although next time I'd ask her to send just girl eggs, please.) Yep. So we'll keep just the two boys for as long as they want to grace us and be content. Or so I thought until I got a phone call from Ken.... seems he was busy on his iPad while he's been out of town....he ordered 15 Silkies from Cackle.....Oh, great Silkie deities....let some of them be girls..... So, you doggone enablers....I hope you're happy! You've converted a perfectly sensible, reasonably intelligent old couple into Silkie enthusiasts, no longer afraid of incubating and ending up with a yard full of useless pocket lint!Katie glued to the incubator..
And this was moving day...taking them to the outside brooder. Look, there's fuzz in her bucket of chicken!
Kendra loving up on Smudge, and yes, that is Ken who brought him in to have his foot looked at. Big softie!
Winter didn't bother King Tut (the dark one in center front) and Smudge (right behind him) one bit, and shortly after this was taken Dufus and Ruby joined them. It was 9 degrees that day!
Thanks! Wow...now I know where the girl eggs went!
