Hi everyone! This is my first post, so please let me know if you notice anything isn't right. I would like everyone's opinions on my 10 month old blue/black silkie "hen" named Bluebell. I have two other silkie hens that are 1.5 years old and a different color (splash/gray), so it's hard to compare her to them. We bought all of the chickens about 2 months ago, and we are total chicken beginners. Over the past two weeks, she has started crowing in the morning, lasting about 5 minutes, and it sounds like a rooster (ER-er-ER-ER-ER!!!). I've heard the others make noise before (which I'm assuming is the "egg song" and is more like bawk-bawk-be-gock! We've also noticed other changes in the past couple weeks...she's now slightly bigger than the other two, has grown small burgundy wattles that weren't there before, and her blue ears have gotten much brighter blue. She also has real feathers on her feet, where the splash girls only have fluff. Her tail feathers are also longer than the other girls' tails. It's hard to tell if the feathers on her head are "streamers," but the ends of them are slightly more brown than black, like highlights! As far as behavior, she crows but is also picked on by the other two, and seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order. I usually get 2 eggs every day, but I think this is normal as I heard that not all three Silkies will lay every day. I've sat next to them for hours hoping to witness one in the act of laying an egg, but cannot definitively say which of them are laying. I'm attempting to post some pictures...please let me know what you think! They are backyard chickens and don't want the neighbors to think I have a rooster! The lady I got them from assured me they were all hens, but that was well before Bluebell started crowing and growing her new characteristics.
