Integrating silkies to chicks

[SilkieNewbee]

Hello, first time chicken owner here. I have 6 chicks of various breeds, moss egger, black australorp, Rhode Island Red, blue laced wynadotte, and cream leg bar. They are almost 6 weeks old. I got a call that some locally hatched silkie chicks are available which I would like to have as well. So, I’m thinking about moving my 6 weeks old into the big coop outside, and then raising 2-3 silkie chicks inside in their own brooder, and then integrating them with the others in the big coop when they are around 6 weeks old. Does this plan sound like it could work? I could also put them together sometimes before that under supervision so they would be more familiar with each other. What would you suggest to make this work? Thanks

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would not integrate 3 silkies with standard breeds. The silkies would get bullied and possibly injured by the more vigorous non-crested standard breeds.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Sometimes Silkies are ok with other breeds, sometimes they're not. Before you get these, do you have the space and budget to make a separate set up in case the birds can't get along?

 

[Swbertrand1]

Hello, first time chicken owner here. I have 6 chicks of various breeds, moss egger, black australorp, Rhode Island Red, blue laced wynadotte, and cream leg bar. They are almost 6 weeks old. I got a call that some locally hatched silkie chicks are available which I would like to have as well. So, I’m thinking about moving my 6 weeks old into the big coop outside, and then raising 2-3 silkie chicks inside in their own brooder, and then integrating them with the others in the big coop when they are around 6 weeks old. Does this plan sound like it could work? I could also put them together sometimes before that under supervision so they would be more familiar with each other. What would you suggest to make this work? Thanks

I would recommend against this for two primary reasons (1&2) and one not so big:
1) The ages are too great to be compatible together. If they were closer in age, like less than a week, ten days at the outside, they'd probably be fine.
2) Silkies, being a smaller breed, will be dwarfed by the other chickens at full maturity of all breeds, and the hell the Silkies are going to go through getting to maturity wouldn't be fair to them. If the breeds/ages were the other way around, MAYBE, and that's still a BIG maybe.
3) The larger breeds would outnumber the smaller breed by 3:1 or 2:1 depending on the number of Silkies you might get.

We raise Silkie chicks each spring, and our flock is integrated with larger breeds and the Silkies sharing coop and runs, but they've been together for years (6 full size Reds, Leghorn, Easter Egger, and Golden Comets) and 7 Silkies. A new Silkie introduction or two every once in a while is not a big deal to anyone, but that doesn't happen until the Silkie is at least 5-6 months old, preferably older. When I say "introduced", I mean they get full run of the same territory as the older, larger birds. Until then, we only mix them when supervised as I mention further down.

6 weeks is WAY too young though. Better option if you really want the Silkies is to keep them separated from the larger adults for a while, letting them integrate for a bit each day and ONLY when supervised. We do that with new chicks that we plan on keeping, but they are only mixed so that everyone gets used to each other. At night, they sleep in separate sections of the coop, and they have their own dedicated run to prevent bad things from happening.

Sikies are DEFINITELY worth having though! If I had it do over, I might have ALL Silkies; they're that sweet and precious...

 

[Pamiam412]

Hello, first time chicken owner here. I have 6 chicks of various breeds, moss egger, black australorp, Rhode Island Red, blue laced wynadotte, and cream leg bar. They are almost 6 weeks old. I got a call that some locally hatched silkie chicks are available which I would like to have as well. So, I’m thinking about moving my 6 weeks old into the big coop outside, and then raising 2-3 silkie chicks inside in their own brooder, and then integrating them with the others in the big coop when they are around 6 weeks old. Does this plan sound like it could work? I could also put them together sometimes before that under supervision so they would be more familiar with each other. What would you suggest to make this work? Thanks

I had two full size chickens. When the first one died of old age I decided to get silkies. My regular size hen was 6 years old at that point. I got 2 silkies. They all got along and hung out everyday together. The big hen protected the silkies. I had no idea that it was unusual. I see that this post was several years ago. I hope it all turned out okay.