This little booger was sold to me as a female from a breeder that I fairly trust. I've purchased other livestock from from them before with no problem;always happy.
It was in the "female" pen and my wife fell in love with it right away. It has a very stoic quietness about it it walks very methodically here and there and very approachable and loves to be carried.
We knew it was young so we didn't expect any adult behavior from it for a while,but slowly but surely,we started noticing that it would chase the females down in sporadic spurts and then it would walk away as if it was just establishing female hierarchy... Then it would sometimes challenge a larger rooster out of the blue.But in an infantile way. Again I've seen females do this so we didn't think twice about the behavior.
During this time we never noticed any stringers popping out of it's head or any changes in it's appearance. Nothing other than cutsie little Silkie chicken stuff....
Gradually, the aggression towards roosters started to escalate,and then I caught him trying to mount a female...at that time I decided to pick him up and I started noticing little stringers coming out the backof it's head,and within a week it started to crow.... at least trying to crow... so then we knew that our pullet turned out to be a Cockerel.
Since then I decided to find someone who worked with Silkies to pick their brain. I contacted someone gracious enough to donate some of their time ans knowledge.I had a long conversation a couple of nights ago with a exclusive breeder.. I believe he's in Texas,he breeds silkies and only silkies he says there's about over 25 different points that you have to inspect on a so-called silkie to confirm it to be considered a proper Silkie.Why?
Because he says there's a ton of outcrosses out there that get passed off as silkies but they're not 100% silkie. Some of them have some outcross somewhere in the background, not enough to change the look but there's certain tiny things you can see in the silkie if its 100% silkie or not.He just gave me a history lesson over the phone through just a quick summary outline of what to look for in a true proper Silkie.He also said that those crosses out there sometimes make it easier and/or even harder to sex them.
He says you can usually tell after five or six months some even hold out till eight months,it's crazy. I would love to hear from other silkie experts.
What did we learn from my post? Maybe nothing... I tend to be long-winded sometimes in my posts.But I hope I helped some people out with that info.
You are not alone in your dilemma time and patience is what's required,unless you want to send the feather out to get DNA'd.
It was in the "female" pen and my wife fell in love with it right away. It has a very stoic quietness about it it walks very methodically here and there and very approachable and loves to be carried.
We knew it was young so we didn't expect any adult behavior from it for a while,but slowly but surely,we started noticing that it would chase the females down in sporadic spurts and then it would walk away as if it was just establishing female hierarchy... Then it would sometimes challenge a larger rooster out of the blue.But in an infantile way. Again I've seen females do this so we didn't think twice about the behavior.
During this time we never noticed any stringers popping out of it's head or any changes in it's appearance. Nothing other than cutsie little Silkie chicken stuff....
Gradually, the aggression towards roosters started to escalate,and then I caught him trying to mount a female...at that time I decided to pick him up and I started noticing little stringers coming out the backof it's head,and within a week it started to crow.... at least trying to crow... so then we knew that our pullet turned out to be a Cockerel.
Since then I decided to find someone who worked with Silkies to pick their brain. I contacted someone gracious enough to donate some of their time ans knowledge.I had a long conversation a couple of nights ago with a exclusive breeder.. I believe he's in Texas,he breeds silkies and only silkies he says there's about over 25 different points that you have to inspect on a so-called silkie to confirm it to be considered a proper Silkie.Why?
Because he says there's a ton of outcrosses out there that get passed off as silkies but they're not 100% silkie. Some of them have some outcross somewhere in the background, not enough to change the look but there's certain tiny things you can see in the silkie if its 100% silkie or not.He just gave me a history lesson over the phone through just a quick summary outline of what to look for in a true proper Silkie.He also said that those crosses out there sometimes make it easier and/or even harder to sex them.
He says you can usually tell after five or six months some even hold out till eight months,it's crazy. I would love to hear from other silkie experts.
What did we learn from my post? Maybe nothing... I tend to be long-winded sometimes in my posts.But I hope I helped some people out with that info.
You are not alone in your dilemma time and patience is what's required,unless you want to send the feather out to get DNA'd.
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