Silkie Q&A

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Chicken-Man

Chicken-Man

Chirping
6 Years
Jan 8, 2014
396
8
81
your head.... ~(*.*)~
Hello,
I have started this post because I find many questions about silkies. and Many question about them keeping me awake and curiouse myself. so my first question about silkies is:
When do they start to lay?? I have heard so many different times. some say 9 months others say 5 and I have even hear 12. I just don't know. but silkie hen lay her first egg today and I am trying to find an approximate age of her. so. when do silkies start to lay??
 
How long is a piece of string? It all depends on how you are feeding her and the weather conditions and time of year, it can vary so much when a hen will begin to lay her first egg. I found that with my silkies when i had a spring hatch they would usually lay after 24 weeks, these are free range birds with unlimited access to grass, and had a good supply of initial chick pellets followed by growers pellets.
 
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Lots of threads here on BYC on when Silkies lay. I don't keep them, so I can't give you any exact advice. But here is a link to a long thread on the same question. Maybe it will give you some insight as to how old your bird is. However, since many factors can cause a bird to lay later in life than the average laying month, this may not be accurate enough...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/224462/at-what-age-do-silkies-start-to-lay

Good luck in figuring all this out and enjoy BYC!
 
Silkies have been bred for 'pretty'. Egg production has not been a selection criteria in their breeding. Feed, environment, day length , etc all factors affecting the onset of egg laying. There is a wide variation in egg laying depending upon the particular family/strain of silky. The range of from 5 months to 12 + for egg laying onset is probably not unrealistic.
 
Lots of silkie threads on BYC, put "Silkie thread," in the search box and they should pop up. Silkie breeders can probably give you the best advice. But, you will find a lot of them cannot make any firm rules about them. Silkies are very hard to sex before 5 mos. or so, the best way to tell is when they crow or lay eggs
 
sourland said:
Silkies have been bred for 'pretty'. Egg production has not been a selection criteria in their breeding. Feed, environment, day length , etc all factors affecting the onset of egg laying. There is a wide variation in egg laying depending upon the particular family/strain of silky. The range of from 5 months to 12 + for egg laying onset is probably not unrealistic.
Click to expand...
And other than being 'pretty' birds ... i would breed them for being excellent sitters.
 

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