Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[jajeanpierre]

All right non - silkie lovers give them a chance. I got mine so my son could have something for 4h and they take all new babies under their wings and protect them. If I go in the room they spread their wings over the youngins and make sure it is safe before coming over. Boys and girls both something to think about. I'm gonna use them for brooders hopefully to. So just be nice to my little froofie poos! Lol

My little Silkie hens were the ones that very tentatively chased the killer Dachshund and the Scarlet macaw that went to ground in my back yard. The Ameraucana rooster ran away crying. Silkies are very brave.

 

[Beekissed]

They ARE feisty, that's for sure! Gotta give 'em that. If a person could supersize them, take off those leg warmers and toboggans, and give them wing feathers, meaty breasts and thighs and good laying traits I'd have a whole flock of them.

 

[jajeanpierre]

All right non - silkie lovers give them a chance. I got mine so my son could have something for 4h and they take all new babies under their wings and protect them. If I go in the room they spread their wings over the youngins and make sure it is safe before coming over. Boys and girls both something to think about. I'm gonna use them for brooders hopefully to. So just be nice to my little froofie poos! Lol

One other interesting little foo-foo chicken fact--in the 70s when Peregrine falcons were so endangered, they incubated the eggs using Silkies and Cochins. More trustworthy than the best incubator. A really dear friend of mine, an avian vet who breeds white Arctic Gyr falcons in Abu Dhabi, told me that falcon breeders still use Silkies to hatch falcon eggs. They pull the eggs when they pip or at hatch.

 

[Beekissed]

They probably also come in handy when the falcons need to eat....less feathers to get through.

 

[jajeanpierre]

They ARE feisty, that's for sure! Gotta give 'em that. If a person could supersize them, take off those leg warmers and toboggans, and give them wing feathers, meaty breasts and thighs and good laying traits I'd have a whole flock of them.

My Silkies lay all the time. They lay when they are broody. Their eggs are 35 to 40 grams, which is about 2/3rds the size of a large egg. They are not anywhere near 2/3rds the size of a large fowl. My Kitchen Chicken--yup, I have a naked Cochin in my kitchen--was laying almost every day. Before I did something to stop her laying, she was laying 9 days in a row. She weighs a pound and a half and was laying a 40 gram egg. Not too many LF chicken will lay as comparatively large an egg as she does. Why, you ask, is she naked? She's a hatchery frizzle that carries two copies of the frizzle gene which makes the feathers very weak and brittle. They've broken off because the little apron I had on her to protect her from the sun and cold.

 

[fisherlady]

I currently have a barnevelder and an olive egger plucking their breast feathers. The olive egger is bare from her crop to between her legs. I hope she goes broody soon!

Last year, I had 10 broodies - so be careful what you wish for!

Yep, #5 for the year already is setting on eggs as we type... she has had them for only 2 days so far.... she'd been broody for a week but I made her wait since I currently have 4 others with chicks all under 4 weeks, we needed to stretch it out a bit because it is going to be hopping here in another week or so when the last hatches join the main coop!

DH wants to get another shed to replace one we have with a bad floor.... and he wants it big enough to add more coops so broodies have more room!!

 

[fisherlady]

Well, 12 chicken nuggets followed Mindy home from Tractor Supply.... she is one happy puppy right now!

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Bad floor?? Sounds like a great time to go to deep litter!!

 

[fisherlady]

Quote: Bad floor?? Sounds like a great time to go to deep litter!!

We do sand for our floors (over linoleum for easy cleaning)... our property backs up to woods and a power line... raccoon, possums, rats (compliments of the neighbors garbage heap) fox and coyote are common in the area so a solid floor is an absolute. When we built our existing coop I elevated it and lined the underside with metal and then insulated the floor... we have never had a problem and the sand floor means the birds get to dust bath even when it is 0* outside. It is surprisingly easy to keep clean now that I did roosting shelves which catch 90% of the overnight poo.

I like the idea of deep litter, and would if my coops were able to be totally within my chain link enclosure, but can't do it safely with the location we have now.

 

[Tomtommom]

I've got all hatchery birds.. had one go broody, a white rock of all things. I think she would have been ok, if I had not waited so long to put eggs under her. None of them are reliably broody though, one broody in a flock of nine, over a year old now. Maybe now that they're older, they'll consider raising some kids

Mutts are the best dogs, I'm sure the same goes for chickens.