Silkie thread!

[chisNchickens]

This sounds easier than the DE, where do you find it? Is it just for this purpose, or something you discovered on your own? I wonder, if it is smothering those little critters.

Yes, it smothers them. Pretty much any oil will work if you want oily birds. I have wondered about a few drops of neem oil - neem is a very effective repellent. I use it in a spray on my dogs in the evening against mosquitos - and have used it on myself when we had ticks and they would literally jump off my legs to get away from the neem. It is however, an essential oil and EOs may not be the best for birds, not sure. If I tried it I would not coat the animal in it such as the coconut oil but rather dot it on like spot ons. I must say I have not had the situation arise yet so can't say if is effective or harmful. I do know folks use oil - even just corn oil - for mites on dogs. Just suffocates them. I personally would not want to look at a bunch of oily birds, and it would not address the mites in the environment.

 

[Cynthia12]

Originally Posted by KMHunter


I would like to know about everyones experience in adding to your silkie flock. Or putting different age chicks together. How are Silkies at that? Are they as mean as other breeds? Is there a serious pecking order?
I have 4 week olds and am hatching some, due anyday now. At what point do you think it would be ok to put them in the same x-large brooder, then into the coop.
I have a seperate brooder right now, but my end goal is to wait on putting them into the coop I have until all of them can go outside.
Any ideas?


Right now I have two silkies (Peepblessed) that are about tow months old in with two LF Polish of just six weeks old and have added a few chicks that I hatch out from older birds. The chicks were accepted fine and were kept warm at night by the four older birds all snuggled together. Even now that they are a little bigger they all snuggle together. I thing the polish would like to sleep up on the roost but they eventully go down with the other. We are very hot here, 110 degrees today. I let they take dust baths in wet sand to cool down.

I have one silkie rooster who does well in a mixed flock of four bantam hens, NN, polish and ameraucana. He is very interested in keeping everyone in line and he has no trouble with the big hens either. He is from CJsilkies in Pa and is a rather big guy for a silkie but pretty nice to silkie standard. I did trim fuzzy around his eyes and butt though and have had good fertility with him so far.

Some may gasp, but I have put two week old babies, in with my Silkie. Granted, this is my only older Silkie, so I have only this one to compare to, but she did fine with them. She pushed at them, let them know she was head honcho, but she was not pecking at them, not mean at all. I use this pen as a grow out pen, I think she's getting used to it. I've put others in for a while, she is now just used to it. I find all chickens have their own behavior within every breed. Some breeds are known as having a more "nice" personality, but there may be some little stinkers pop up once in a while. )

 

[Cynthia12]

Yes, it smothers them. Pretty much any oil will work if you want oily birds. I have wondered about a few drops of neem oil - neem is a very effective repellent. I use it in a spray on my dogs in the evening against mosquitos - and have used it on myself when we had ticks and they would literally jump off my legs to get away from the neem. It is however, an essential oil and EOs may not be the best for birds, not sure. If I tried it I would not coat the animal in it such as the coconut oil but rather dot it on like spot ons. I must say I have not had the situation arise yet so can't say if is effective or harmful. I do know folks use oil - even just corn oil - for mites on dogs. Just suffocates them. I personally would not want to look at a bunch of oily birds, and it would not address the mites in the environment.

I wondered about the oily look in the chickens. lol..thinking the dotting it on might be best. I don't have that much of a problem here though. I do use the DE in the spring and fall, but, do check my birds in between. If I even see one mite, that particular bird gets more DE. Birds get them, it really isn't something we can keep away at all times, but if I notice a bird that is turning it's head to it's butt real quick and pecking away, she gets checked.
Not sure what neem is? Sounds like something we would love to use while in our mountains here. We don't have much of a problem in the valley with mosquitos where where we live, but there are some area near our lakes or rivers that have some problems. We live near a canyon area, so thank goodness not a problem with those here. Once in a while, we will have one get us, but it isn't like when I lived in Florida! Anyway, the neem sounds good for when we do head for the mountains..love to camp and fish.

 

[peepblessed]

I've had two different hatches. One from catdance, you saw those pictures a ways back on the thread. And now, I have some that I got from marneypoo.. Martha
So, get ready for some cute picture overload, I only took a picture of a few different ones, but they all look pretty much the same. Sorry about the blurry partridge pictures..not sure why they did that.


This one needs the feathers cut back already. Need to find some blunt end scissors, quick!


Same baby, nice foot feathering ey?
One of the partridge, foot feathers!


The darker buff..where's those scissors?! I separate the feathers every now and again for
now.

Quite the muff


Precious!


This is the partridge I'm keeping. )
Blurry, but you can see how pretty..another little precious baby. This one is the smallest of
the two, hoping it's a girl. I know, may not matter. Just crossing fingers though.


This is a lighter buff, the one I am keeping. "she" stole my heart over the darker one.
Same chick..mine! Little fluff ball!
Martha, thank you for these cuties. I consider 10 healthy chicks a good hatch for shipped eggs. I could so buy more now and have them all sold. There just aren't any Silkies for sale out here. But, I think I worry about the heat now. So, come fall, I sure hope you are still selling
these beautiful eggs/babies.
You have probably seen what stole my heart in the beginning..my blue splash that I kept from my first hatch from you. Never thought I wanted a Silkie, did the hatch for others, but I kept the blue splash.
In case you haven't seen a picture of "her", and maybe, since it is one of yours, you can tell if this one is looking like a girl? At 13 weeks in this picture. Some say yes.


I keep getting those feathers out of the way too!


"She" is just beautiful. I'm so glad I found some of your eggs for sale! What do you think?
Too early to tell yet? Looking forward to buying from you in the fall, I hope.

Great looking chicks!! I got the partridge in my avatar from Martha.

 

[peepblessed]

My six week old beauty

Beauty indeed!!!

 

[peepblessed]

Originally Posted by KMHunter


I would like to know about everyones experience in adding to your silkie flock. Or putting different age chicks together. How are Silkies at that? Are they as mean as other breeds? Is there a serious pecking order?
I have 4 week olds and am hatching some, due anyday now. At what point do you think it would be ok to put them in the same x-large brooder, then into the coop.
I have a seperate brooder right now, but my end goal is to wait on putting them into the coop I have until all of them can go outside.
Any ideas?


Right now I have two silkies (Peepblessed) that are about tow months old in with two LF Polish of just six weeks old and have added a few chicks that I hatch out from older birds. The chicks were accepted fine and were kept warm at night by the four older birds all snuggled together. Even now that they are a little bigger they all snuggle together. I thing the polish would like to sleep up on the roost but they eventully go down with the other. We are very hot here, 110 degrees today. I let they take dust baths in wet sand to cool down.

I have one silkie rooster who does well in a mixed flock of four bantam hens, NN, polish and ameraucana. He is very interested in keeping everyone in line and he has no trouble with the big hens either. He is from CJsilkies in Pa and is a rather big guy for a silkie but pretty nice to silkie standard. I did trim fuzzy around his eyes and butt though and have had good fertility with him so far.

Hi Mary, We discuss this a few pages back (2037) so check that out. Glad to see you on the thread again!

 

[KMHunter]

Originally Posted by KMHunter


I would like to know about everyones experience in adding to your silkie flock. Or putting different age chicks together. How are Silkies at that? Are they as mean as other breeds? Is there a serious pecking order?
I have 4 week olds and am hatching some, due anyday now. At what point do you think it would be ok to put them in the same x-large brooder, then into the coop.
I have a seperate brooder right now, but my end goal is to wait on putting them into the coop I have until all of them can go outside.
Any ideas?


Right now I have two silkies (Peepblessed) that are about tow months old in with two LF Polish of just six weeks old and have added a few chicks that I hatch out from older birds. The chicks were accepted fine and were kept warm at night by the four older birds all snuggled together. Even now that they are a little bigger they all snuggle together. I thing the polish would like to sleep up on the roost but they eventully go down with the other. We are very hot here, 110 degrees today. I let they take dust baths in wet sand to cool down.

I have one silkie rooster who does well in a mixed flock of four bantam hens, NN, polish and ameraucana. He is very interested in keeping everyone in line and he has no trouble with the big hens either. He is from CJsilkies in Pa and is a rather big guy for a silkie but pretty nice to silkie standard. I did trim fuzzy around his eyes and butt though and have had good fertility with him so far.

Thank you! I have added chicks with a 2-3 week difference in age before(not silkies) and not had a problem, but since this is my first experience with silkies I just didn't know what I might expect. I wouldn't add them righ after hatch, but I would like to try at around 2 weeks.

 

[KMHunter]

Quote: Thank you all for the advice and experiences. I know I am going to have to be careful but I am hoping that I have nice chicks!

 

[anbsmom]

I set 15 silkie eggs last night.Temp is staying at 99 and occasionally going up to 100. I think this is as close as I can get to 99.5. Do you all think this will be okay? This is the first time I have incubated since installing a PC fan.

 

[chisNchickens]

I wondered about the oily look in the chickens. lol..thinking the dotting it on might be best. I don't have that much of a problem here though. I do use the DE in the spring and fall, but, do check my birds in between. If I even see one mite, that particular bird gets more DE. Birds get them, it really isn't something we can keep away at all times, but if I notice a bird that is turning it's head to it's butt real quick and pecking away, she gets checked.
Not sure what neem is? Sounds like something we would love to use while in our mountains here. We don't have much of a problem in the valley with mosquitos where where we live, but there are some area near our lakes or rivers that have some problems. We live near a canyon area, so thank goodness not a problem with those here. Once in a while, we will have one get us, but it isn't like when I lived in Florida! Anyway, the neem sounds good for when we do head for the mountains..love to camp and fish.

I probably should have emphasized that neem is an essential oil and thus very, very strong. I also should emphasize that EOs are a no-no with cats and perhaps birds as well. I don't know. I just tossed it out there as someone mentioned more natural solutions to mites. I purchase mine from ebay, just type in "neem essential oil". I mix about a half of a teaspoon (which is A LOT for EOs) in with a quart of a water/alcohol solution and spray onto my dogs and me. You can mix in other EOs such as citronella, cedarwood (also repellants) to make it smell better. It is smelly, and it is brown in color so may stain. But it works wonderfully.