Help!! Cant decide between Silkie or Orpington!!!

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SilkieMama512

SilkieMama512

In the Brooder
6 Years
May 25, 2013
61
9
38
Ventura County, CA
Hello Everyone!
I am a new chicken mama to be and can only have two chickens(according to the husband)
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i have literally been OBSESSED with chickens the past few months to the point where my husband is tired of chicken chat
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lol I have everything ready for my new chickens. The only problem is that im still not sure which breed to get. I really Love the look and personality of the silkie chicken, but love the hardyness and brown eggs of the orpington. I have a breeder holding two silkie chicks (one blue and one blue splash) until wednesday, he also has two black ones, should i take all four just in case the two blue are possibly roos?, or should i wait to hear back from a potential lavender orpington breeder?(been waiting over a month already)
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Which breed do you think would make the better pet? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I feel like you guys are the only ones who will understand and be willing to chat with me!
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Silkies would probably make better pets & eye candy but, are not considered good layers. If you want hardiness and eggs pick the orpingtons. The best thing to do since you can only have 2would be to buy older chicks so the seller can tell which are pullets. You could buy one of each breed but unless you buy a bantam orpington it will tower over the silkie.

Most spouses end up falling in love with the chicks once they see them - so there is hope your husband will want more. Incidentally the colored eggs don't taste any different than the white ones.
 
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Thank you for your response:) the look of the silkie is my favorite and to be quite honest we dont really eat too many eggs anyway,so i supose the egg laying isnt too much of an issue :/ i mostly just want pets to roam our little ranch and free range(only with supervision of course) and im hoping that if i get more than two my husband will end up letting me keep them lol im mostly just afraid that my husband wont like my decision(to get the silkie chicks) because he doesnt feel that silkies should be classified under chickens,he says they look like little muppets/stuffed animals, he cracks jokes about them all the time lol i just want whichever breed is the friendliest really. And i heard that if you buy chickens as chicks instead of getting them at an earlier age they are friendlier so is that true or does it just matter by the breed?
 
Hello and welcome....so glad you joined BYC

If it helps any, I would at least always have 3 chicks/chickens. That way if one were to die the other one wouldnt be left alone. I have silkies and bantam cochins. The cochins are by far the friendlier of the two. Ive had orpingtons in the past and they are very friendly too and hardy. But dont get me wrong, I love my silkies and I hatched them myself. They are just not as friendly as I thought they would be

Good luck to you
 
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I also second the motion to get 3 chickens. They get lonely and can't live by themselves, and over their lifetime, one may die. Actually, I would get 4, because if you are going to go to all the trouble having chickens, building a coop, etc., four is no big deal. That way if one or two turns out to be a male, you can re-home it without leaving one alone. I really don't like the idea of getting chickens unsexed when you are not allowed to have roosters, but rather choosing an easy to sex breed like barred rocks or sexlinks. Those are not my favorite breeds though. Silkies are pretty gentle, and you could probably keep a silkie roo without much of a problem. Silkies lay a good size banty egg compared to other bantams.
 
Thank you for everyone's suggestions, I'm thinking atleast four too, for all the reasons listed above:) so happy to be a part of BYC:)! The breeder that I'm going to possibly get the silkie chicks from said they are a little under one month old and don't look cute anymore because they are molting...3 Questions...1) at how old can you tell if a silkie is a boy or girl, 2) is that normal for them to molt so young?? And 3) how long does molting last for?
 
Silkies are kind of difficult to sex until they are much older. At one month old, they are probably not molting as much as just losing their fluffy chick down and getting their new feathers (which makes them look like dinosaurs LOL). This will last until they get all their new feathers in. I am trying to recall at what age mine were when I could kind of start telling the boys from the girls. I think around 4-5 months old is when they really started to take on their respective boy vs. girl characteristics. In mine the girls crest was much more rounded and even (kind of like a bowl cut). Where the boys crests kind of stood up more like a mowhawk and started to get the classic little streamers shooting off the very back. I remember being able to see the boys eyes better. I know thats a peculiar way to explain it but that worked for me. Also my boys would come running to me more than the girls. Hope that helps a bit and I dont steer you wrong.
Also if you havent already, check out the Silkie thread. There are tons of pics there of silkies of all ages. You will see the one month olds getting their new feathers and how terrible they look. Just click on the brown Forum tab at the top, then Breeds/Genetics/Showing, then Silkie thread.
 
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