Silkie feathering

[lovemyjjbs]

I'm new to the silkie breed and have recently added 8 to my flock. They are 3wks old. O was curious about the feathering on their feet. A few have tons of feathers while the others have barely any. Is this common? They are all the same age. Are heavy feet feathering a sign of cockrells? The partridge is fully feathered at the feet while the buff has almost none

 

[casportpony]

Let me go find some Silkie people for you,

 

[LynnaePB]

I'm new to the silkie breed and have recently added 8 to my flock. They are 3wks old. O was curious about the feathering on their feet. A few have tons of feathers while the others have barely any. Is this common? They are all the same age. Are heavy feet feathering a sign of cockrells? The partridge is fully feathered at the feet while the buff has almost none

Foot feathering really seems to vary quite a bit from what I've experienced. Even full siblings I've hatched can have fairly different amounts of feathering on their feet.

Although I have noticed in my own flock and hatching the last couple years that my silkies with the most sparsely feathered feet are more often girls I still have lots of girls with very nice feathering, sometimes much better than their male siblings.

 

[Hinotori]

Foot feathering is hereditary. It is something I've selected for when breeding so all my full silkies have heavy foot feathering until they decide to break them off by digging to China. I have to keep them away from ground if I want them to have good looking foot feathers.

My half silkies have light foot feathering as the other parent was clean legged, but breeding them back to silkie I got chicks with medium foot feathering. The next generation will be back to the heavier feathering even more.

 

[Hinotori]

I concider this medium foot feathering. The first toe doesn't have any feathers and my silkies normally do. It will fill out more as there are pinfeathers coming in.

She's only 3/4 silkie and almost 6 weeks old. Yes she's just calmly laying on my fingers like that so I could get a good picture.