Silkie hatched with brains out *warning graphic pics*

[skippacheval]

I guess I don't understand why we continue to breed animals with this birth defect. We should be culling those who exhibit this tendency. Any reputable breeder would not continue to mate birds that exhibit the tendency to have offspring with this trait. It is just common sense to allow nature of remove this from the gene pool/.

 

[destiny_56085]

Just home from work now.

I hatch roughly 400 silkies per year and at least 600-800 ducks, geese, pheasants, peafowl, turkeys, etc. too. I'm sorry but I don't try and save every mutant that comes out. It also doesn't hurt them to be wet. My hatching room is at least 80 degrees and have heat lamps in the brooder tubs. There are no drafts and they stay plenty warm under the lights. I only open my incubator 2-3 times a day and remove any chicks at those intervals. I'm sorry but I work full time, have to keep up with the farm work, and have family to take care of. I don't have time to sit and babysit the incubator non-stop and wait for every chick to dry fully. In my case I have a huge 400 egg Redwood incubator. If you leave the chicks in there too long they start running around and often times hop out of the racks. When this happens you have to disrupt all the other eggs in there, pull out all the bottom racks, crawl in there and fish out the chicks from the back corners.

I also have a system with my brooder tubs. I have 1 smaller tub for when the chicks first come out. This is their resting area. They are on paper towels and starter is sprinkled down. They get their beaks dipped in water and then I leave them be for at least a day. Once they are up and running around, they get moved to the larger brooder tubs with chicks hatched in the same week span. After that they start getting sorted into bins for keepers or ones to be sold.

I just thought this was a good example of showing exactly the extent those brains are out on the vaulted silkies. Normally this would be the type of situation where I would euthanize it immediately.

I too have used prednisone on my dog in the past. You do have to get it from a vet though. I don't have a decent avian vet in the area and I get the run around from the rest of the vets here when I ask for it for use on birds. Thus I stick to the Vit. E & Selenium here.

 

[destiny_56085]

skippacheval....the reason why this continues is simple.

This is what the crests look like on your average non-vaulted silkies:

Now you look at the silkies that are winning in the show rings. Most if not all of those monster sized crests are due to the vaulted skulls.

I have seen some of the non-vaulted birds get up to a maybe golf ball sized crest. I personally like mine with the baseball-softball sized crests. All a matter of personal opinion.

 

[ultasol]

I agree, unless the standards themselves were to change (or the showring 'trends') the vaulted skull trait is here to stay.

I don't think it is the vault itself giving the extreme crest size, rather, as mentioned in one of the articles (I think) a link between the two tendencies.

Destiny(misc numbers I can't remember inserted here), did you say this came from crossing with polish for more crest size? Do you know how long age those cross breedings occurred?

 

[destiny_56085]

Well white had been the only accepted color for silkies for a long time. I'd have to look up the exact dates. I'm fairly sure the blacks were admitted in the SOP about 20-25 years ago and splash about 15 years ago. To introduce these colors into silkies, they had to crossbreed with polish, bantam cochins, etc. I'm sure the crosses with the polish resulted in the larger vaulted skulls. Years of selective breeding later.....

I've been breeding silkies for just about 8 years now. When I started out I saw very few vaulted birds. It seems like attention is finally being paid to the neurological problems within the last few years. Alot is changing... crests are getting bigger, combs are getting smaller, foot feathering is much better, rounder cushions and less hard feathering, short backs, rounder bodies.... With all these 'improvements', I have also noticed alot of fertility problems and alot more fraile birds.

 

[ultasol]

Sometimes I wonder if the Europeans have a more balanced system- where the attributes that make the bird able to survive/reproduce on its own are considered (such as crest not obscuring vision, etc).

Although I do admit the round little cottonballs that meet the American standards are visually appealing.