Silkie -- Blind-like Behavior???

[Brian]

Hello. I have 29 4-month old chickens, and one is a silkie. She is incredible docile, tame, and sweet. But she is also a tad strange. For instance, she's always the last to go in at night. I don't mean by 5-10 minutes either, but by 30-minutes or so. She will just stand outside while everyone else is already roosting, and generally doesn't go in the hen house until it's fairly dark outside. Also, she doesn't roost with the others, but prefers a nesting box (the only one out of 29 to do this). I've read this is not uncommon with silkies. But, here's what I'm really wanting to post and get feedback on--it's how she eats! When the hens are out in the yard, and I bring them a treat, or scatter scratch onto the ground, the silkie isn't as quick on the draw. In fact she's always sort of slow. She's definitely interested and runs for the food, but while she's slow to peck at it. While others peck at the food instantly, my little silkie bantam seems to take 2-3 seconds. I've speculated that perhaps she has very poor vision, but, again, this is speculation. Even if I hold her in my hand and then grab a handful of scratch and present it to her, she still is slow to dive in, and when she does, she's a bit of a slow eater. Almost seems like she just doesn't see it well. So...here's what I'm wondering. Is this a silkie trait? Are they slow this way? Do your silkies behave this way, or is my poor little girl just slow?

One last note: when my 29 chicks arrived from the hatchery, this little silkie was cold and barely alive. We warmed her up under a lamp, and within an hour she was doing fine. After 24 hours, she was just as healthy and vigorous as the other chicks.

Thanks!

 

[ChickenLove6]

Hi,
Maybe she's just at the bottom of the 'pecking' chain, she may be scared that the other chickens are going to peck her if she dives into the food before anyone else. Also are her feathers going infront of her eyes? If they are this may be the cause of her not reacting to the food, you may need to just trim her feathers around her eyes so she can see. Or she may just be a little slow as you said.
I hope this helped!

 

[Brian]

No feathers block her vision.

 

[Disecky]

I have the same thing going on with my splash silkie. how did you make out with this bird?

 

[Nicole Simpson]

Hello. I have 29 4-month old chickens, and one is a silkie. She is incredible docile, tame, and sweet. But she is also a tad strange. For instance, she's always the last to go in at night. I don't mean by 5-10 minutes either, but by 30-minutes or so. She will just stand outside while everyone else is already roosting, and generally doesn't go in the hen house until it's fairly dark outside. Also, she doesn't roost with the others, but prefers a nesting box (the only one out of 29 to do this). I've read this is not uncommon with silkies. But, here's what I'm really wanting to post and get feedback on--it's how she eats! When the hens are out in the yard, and I bring them a treat, or scatter scratch onto the ground, the silkie isn't as quick on the draw. In fact she's always sort of slow. She's definitely interested and runs for the food, but while she's slow to peck at it. While others peck at the food instantly, my little silkie bantam seems to take 2-3 seconds. I've speculated that perhaps she has very poor vision, but, again, this is speculation. Even if I hold her in my hand and then grab a handful of scratch and present it to her, she still is slow to dive in, and when she does, she's a bit of a slow eater. Almost seems like she just doesn't see it well. So...here's what I'm wondering. Is this a silkie trait? Are they slow this way? Do your silkies behave this way, or is my poor little girl just slow?

One last note: when my 29 chicks arrived from the hatchery, this little silkie was cold and barely alive. We warmed her up under a lamp, and within an hour she was doing fine. After 24 hours, she was just as healthy and vigorous as the other chicks.

Thanks!

 

[Nicole Simpson]

My name is Nicole, silkies are goofy little characters. They’re a little bit slower than the hens, the big hens, and if one silky is afraid to go into a coop, you might wanna get her a partner, another silky, because silkies are actually kept for laying other hens eggs if you have a rooster, but if you were just to collect eggs and wanted the silky for like because they’re so cute they are goofy. They are a little bit slow. It takes a little bit time if I were you, I would push to silky into the house, lock her in there and every night do it for about a week, and then she’ll be trained to go in there by herself with the rest of the hens to be warm silkies also grow at a very slow rate compared to regular brut hens!! when you see the chickens jump up and down and they’re jumping on top of each other that’s because they’re playing but when they jump on these little bitty silkies, they hurt them so I had to take my two silkies away for 24 hours so he can sleep and gather their energy gave them some eggs and Pedialyte that you can buy from the store to give them their energy back and then I mix them back in with the big hens now the big hens seem like they wanna crush them Yeah, I will split them up again, but if you want your silky to be adjusted to the hands lock that door push them in there at night and make sure you let him out at 6 o’clock in the morning open that door at six in the morning and then you will slowly start seeing your silky walk up that little ladder and go right in there with the rest of the hands you just need to train them that’s all I hope this helps you out yes and I hope you get all the enjoyment out of these little babies like I do God bless PS if some of the words don’t come out correctly is because I was text talking I apologize