Usually little boy silkies will have swept back crests starting as littles. The girls stand straight up. Once in awhile you will get a large vaulted skull on a boy. That tends to make the crest a bit fluffier and girlier, and you end up with what I have with the little blue partridge. Now that being said a good quality silkie should be hard to sex. You want the girls and boys to have noce round crests, so that's what I will be using him for in breedings. When you have a large crest on a boy, and can't tell sex, usually around 3 months you will start seeing the pins for streamers coming in on the back of the head. Also the hackles will get shinier, and little pins for saddle feathers will start emerging on the lower back, just like in regular feathered breeds. I have noticed my boys tend to grow faster than my girls and have a raspier 'voice'. I personally would not breed a straight combed bird. I have never had one hatch from my flock, but it is too risky that it would come out n future generations since it is recessive. The only thing I will breed is if the bird is really nice everywhere, but is say missing the fifth toe on one foot or has not super tight wings or a fault that can be bred out, then I will go ahead and use them. I try not to breed birds with faults if it can be helped.
If you have other questions don't hesitate to ask.
We all start somewhere.Also if anyone is interested I have a couple of really nice silkie boys I need to rehome. It's not urgent, just not using them for breeding, but they could be used. One is a bit of a turd, but makes beautiful chicks and they havent inherited his bad mood. One is blue one is black. Both are correct aside of a bit of silver hackle leakage which is just indicative that they are silver based, which is desirable, and the blue is missing a 5 toe, but hasn't passed it on to his kids. They all have the correct number of toes.Very fluffy, from show lines.
lol j/k I do need to get over there and work with them though.
