Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

[Brookiesbrooder]

While we are disgussing Karen's Catdance beautiful stock. I wanted to show you why I bought an incubator. Just so I would have some of her beautiful Porcelain. (and every other color)Karen's porce coloring is unmatched.What do you think of this pullet at JUST before 3 months.The silvery shimmer is much more easily seen in person

 

[aoxa]

Very few of the folks with really good stock are willing to sell hatching eggs - for many understandable reasons. Lucky for us, it seems to be working out pretty well for Catdance!

Yes indeed!

She must have a lot of breeding silkies!

 

[peepblessed]

While we are disgussing Karen's Catdance beautiful stock. I wanted to show you why I bought an incubator. Just so I would have some of her beautiful Porcelain. (and every other color)Karen's porce coloring is unmatched.What do you think of this pullet at JUST before 3 months.The silvery shimmer is much more easily seen in person

Just beautiful!!


Jessy, we need a new color to discuss!

 

[KMHunter]

Quote:
You have NO IDEA! She has pens of accepted colors and project color pens, with like 1 boy and 6 or 7 girls. And cockerel pens and pullet pens galore! I was lucky enough to go visit her place back in September(she lives about 3.5 hours away.) to see her birds and pick her brain. She was so nice and so willing to share her knowledge with me and my friend Dana(Sadie Sue here on BYC). Her place is AMAZING and so are her birds! I was drooling all over the place!

If I want to get some eggs from her in the future I feel fortunate that I can drive to pick them up instead of having them shipped. I hope the hatch rate will be better than shipped eggs.

I think she said that she goes to two shows a year the one that was in Salem OR, October and April. So I think she hatches two times a year specifically to have potential birds for those shows. She may hatch some at other times but I think she sells them to the rest of us during the "off" times.

 

[jrosemoore]

I did ask Karen if she was worried about people eventually using her eggs to hatch out winners that would beat her own at shows, and she didn't seem too worried. She has an excellent thing going there. I only wish I could visit her farm and pick her brain for advice! I do hope she was able to make it to nationals and show of some of those beautiful birds. We have an incubator full right now from her and plan to buy another few rounds in the future. Speaking of which, a batch of cuties(from another seller) just arrived yesterday. This is my favorite, Jo, who my son named and is about 3 months old. Still has a lot of development and a little weak in the tail end of things but look at that crest! It's like a balloon. Finally makes me proud to own a few pretty ones! I'm getting better at this picking and choosing business

 

[BarnGoddess01]

I did ask Karen if she was worried about people eventually using her eggs to hatch out winners that would beat her own at shows, and she didn't seem too worried. She has an excellent thing going there. I only wish I could visit her farm and pick her brain for advice! I do hope she was able to make it to nationals and show of some of those beautiful birds. We have an incubator full right now from her and plan to buy another few rounds in the future. Speaking of which, a batch of cuties(from another seller) just arrived yesterday. This is my favorite, Jo, who my son named and is about 3 months old. Still has a lot of development and a little weak in the tail end of things but look at that crest! It's like a balloon. Finally makes me proud to own a few pretty ones! I'm getting better at this picking and choosing business

For most breeders, I don't think the problem is hatching out winners. Nobody minds winners. I think the major problem is hatching out "junk" which happens to everyone, in every line and then passing that junk off as "so and so's" line. That is why so many of the "major" breeders won't even sell culls as pet quality.

 

[peepblessed]

I did ask Karen if she was worried about people eventually using her eggs to hatch out winners that would beat her own at shows, and she didn't seem too worried. She has an excellent thing going there. I only wish I could visit her farm and pick her brain for advice! I do hope she was able to make it to nationals and show of some of those beautiful birds. We have an incubator full right now from her and plan to buy another few rounds in the future. Speaking of which, a batch of cuties(from another seller) just arrived yesterday. This is my favorite, Jo, who my son named and is about 3 months old. Still has a lot of development and a little weak in the tail end of things but look at that crest! It's like a balloon. Finally makes me proud to own a few pretty ones! I'm getting better at this picking and choosing business

Adorable! What color is it? Looks chocolate.

 

[jrosemoore]

BarnGoddess01:
I would think the problem would be the winners. If all the people we know that own/want silkies were to only buy from one breeder or two breeders, then all our stock would come from the same exact stock we are trying to create again. That in itself can cause major faults, flaws, and recessive characteristics becoming dominant inside your flock. Not to mention resorting to AI. How many problems do we see with birds that are so chest heavy that they cannot mate or that have no desire to mate? Yes, some roos will mate with anything in sight, but more are becoming selective. I cannot help but think that maybe it is because they are related so closely that they have a bigger interest outside than what's in the pen in front of them.

Sure, chickens don't "think" like that either. I don't know? Maybe there is a bigger piece being played.

As for people passing off "junk" as pets, what is the concern there? That they will try to reproduce these crappy silkies with other crappy silkies to make even crappier silkies? Ah, I say...Let them!! If they want to sell their junk as someone else's treasure then go ahead. No one in the showing business will take the bird seriously, and anyone that actually goes out to research the bird will do so BEFORE getting ripped off on something like that.

We all start somewhere. I'll never forget the time my husband went to a sale for me and looking for just silkies for me as a gift, came home with 5 hatchery roosters. Did we deserve that? Yup! Because my husband couldn't tell the difference between a roo and a hen, and I didn't know much about silkies at that point either

And thanks peepblessed, it's a black. The lighting in my house makes it more yellow than it is...and I attempted to edit the photo to make it prettier. Looks like that was a fail. hahaha.

 

[vsolosky]

Hi!

I'm new to the chicken keeping world - but i currently have 7 EE and 4 silkies. I wanted to post pics of my silkies - they came from JM Hatchery. and were 15 weeks old as Oct. 29th









I'm thinking that I have 3 boys and 1 girl.

The last one has a completely different looking comb than the others.....

What does everyone think?

Thanks so much for the input!!

 

[vsolosky]

oh - and i'm not concerned about them being "show" quality. I just wanted some neat pet quality chickens to add to my flock.