Help me with my Silkies!!

[Christina.Rich]

Hi there! I just hatched a dozen eggs of silkies that I had purchased from an auction. I have two questions based on my photos below.

1.) what colors are they??

2.) why does the one white silkie have an “Afro” thing going on, but the other don’t??

Any help would be amazing!!
Thank you!!

 

[wvchickenchick311]

They are adorable, I don’t have silkies,but I’ve been around a lot of them... It looks like the white one is maybe a roo? Or an older egg?

 

[BrahmaMom1797]

Afro Silkie might just have a bigger crest?? The little ladies with the stripes are probably partridge coloring... not 100% positive though

 

[LynnaePB]

I'd guess partridge for the three ones with the stripes. The little one with the affro looks like it might be a buff or possibly white.

The afro it has is a vaulted skull, a lot of silkies can have them. Their skull and brains protrude more than other chickens, like a baby human has a soft spot the vaulted skulled chicks have less skull protecting their brains when they hatch. As they age the holes in the skull will often fill in more but they can still be more vulnerable to head injuries than non vaulted silkies. A vaulted skull isn't considered a defect, it used to be associated with a bigger crest (a lot of times it will affect the overall shape of the crest) but in well bred birds the vault shouldn't affect the crest size and both vaulted and non vaulted can have large crests.

Here is a link to an older thread that talks about vaulted skulls and has an illustration of vaulted vs non vaulted skulls in the 6th post.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/vaulted-skulls.435248/