Love my ducks but... chickens have their finer points...

[dianaross77]

Chicks are generally fully feathered by 8 weeks so yours should be alright to go out then. We have a house chicken who is a Silkie. They are very fun. They're not like other chickens, more like fuzzy clucking slippers.

Mine will jump up on the couch and nap on my feet while I watch TV and has even slept in my DD's bed with her. MY chickens are way more personable than my ducks and were raised the same. Mine run to the door of their pen when they see me coming. They all squat for a back scratch and don't mind being picked up. If I sit down one of them will jump in my lap. They each lay an egg every day. I like both the chickens and the ducks. If I had to choose it would be chickens because they are easier to take care of.

 

[FenDruadin]

That's cool to hear about the silkies. I really want these to be like fuzzy slippers--yay. We handle them a lot every day. I carry them around when I don't need both hands. And they are in a brooder in the kitchen so they see us all the time. I've noticed that they will readily fall asleep in my hands, and when I put my hand back in the brooder, they just nestle closer into my hand and go back to sleep. The others will come over and lay down half on my hand next to the other. I have to tip my hand to dump them out.

The ducks are tame-ish, but they don't like to be handled. I hope the silkies will be a little different, and it sounds like I've got a good shot at it. The hard part is going to be parting with the extra males when they are of age. Speaking of which, how soon can I sex them? It is humbling to try a new species.

P.S. Is your house silkie in a diaper?

 

[dianaross77]

My silkie is 5 months old and I still have no idea if it's a hen or roo.

Silkies are tough to sex. It's basically a waiting game until they crow or lay an egg. We had 2 Silkies and they were kept outside with our hens and would freak out if I even got near them. We lost one to a predator and I brought the little one back in the house. Now it's my little buddy! So even without being handled much, they can still make nice pets. I bought a diaper for it but it looked uncomfortable and stressed Fred out. I rigged one up that fits and works much better. Fred doesn't mind it at all and happily wore it all night.

 

[FenDruadin]

Soooo.... can you keep any number of silkie roosters? Or will they eventually get aggressive and over-breed the females like drakes will? If gender ratio doesn't matter much in silkies, I will be so tickled--I'd love to think I can keep them ALL. And if that's the case, I won't even care very much how many females, as long as I get one or two (I have seven total babies).

Thanks for all the great info!!

 

[calgal98]

My silkie roos never got aggressive. The hens are usually very quiet. I suspect lots of the calmness comes because they have a really hard time seeing things due to their head/face feathering. I trimmed one silkie's feathers so it could see and lo and behold he started crowing! He could see! I no longer keep the helmet feathered birds because they have such a difficult time here with the free ranging. I was always too worried about their being unable to escape a predator.

 

[ChickInDelight]

My chickens are less afraid of me than my ducks.

They stand on my feet while I am getting their food. They are sometimes underfoot like cats.

They are SO funny when they run across the yard.

They are not so afraid of strange things.

They put themselves to bed every evening flawlessly.

They like the duckhouse (that I am building) more than the ducks do - MAJOR points.

 

[jdywntr]

My chickens are much more friendly than the ducks. As soon as I open the back door, no matter where they are, they come running. There is nothing funnier than 5 chickens sprinting to the porch to see if you have something.

If I do have something for them they are right underfoot. Takes me a few minutes to walk to the coop which is about 25 feet from the door.

They are fearless, which is a little worrisome.

They don't have the biggest personality but in my experience are much hardier and easier than ducks. I've never lost a chicken. My girls turned 1 a few days ago. Started laying at about 5 months age (I think) and it is not an egg hunt since they lay their eggs in the nestbox.

They do make a mess of the garden. Between them and the rats, I only got 3 tomatoes this spring.

But I finally discovered that 4 feet tall fencing will keep them at bay so my late summer garden is doing wonderfully.

I got ducks originally because I wanted to be more self sufficient with food and since I'm in the suburbs, no roosters for me so I cannot reproduce my own chickens. With the ducks, I can allow them to procreate and have an on hand food source outside of eggs.