Well said, Hawkeye!!this entire thread is a big enabler! LOL!! Yeah, there's no telling what quality of birds you will get out of SQ birds. I have SQ and BQ birds and still get an assortment of very nice chicks, but some of them just would never be SQ even though their parents are.
My boys all look like girls at 8 weeks... just warning you! LOL!! Every single one of my chicks out there have beautiful round crests. And I KNOW there have to be boys out there-- there's too many of them for there not to be boys. You can't go on crests alone. And my roosters are often the most laid back and sweet little things. I like my boys the best because of their sweet tempers. My nice rooster started out looking exactly like a girl-- beautiful big round crest. Then the streamers came in around 5 months....The nicer the quality, the harder it's going to be to judge.
X2!! I started with hatchery quality. Nothing wrong with them. If you do intend on showing, you'll want to get something nicer. But if you just want fluffy happy pets, you're set!
No, BQ doesn't mean they came from SQ birds. You can only tell what kind of quality of bird you have once they have matured and see how closely they come to the SOP. (standard of perfection) Any birds that have less than or more than 5 toes are a DQ (disqualified-- can not breed or show), birds that have smaller than desirable crests are then pet quality, and the list goes on and on. For your bird to be a Breeder Quality (BQ) you will need a pretty darned good bird with very few faults that keep it from being very competitive as a show bird. So you could show a BQ, because there will be minimal faults, BUT-- you won't place as well next to the REALLY nice birds. Chicks hatched from SQ stock will still give you an assortment of pet quality, breeder and possibly some SQ. The SQ are much harder to come by, though different people will call birds SQ when really it's up to a judge and see how well they fare against other birds that have excellent type, etc. If you haven't been to the ASBC site (american silkie bantam club) --do take a look at their birds and you can quickly see the difference between the qualities of birds. If your birds could compete with the really amazing birds that are winning those shows, then you absolutely have a SQ bird... if not, but you have very little faults, then you have a BQ. But you'll have to wait till your birds are much older before you can assess your quality. For example.. I have a bird right now that has such incredible potential to be a BQ or SQ... BUT, I *think* her wings might possibly be split! In which case, it doesn't matter how fantastic looking she is-- I can't breed her. Making her a pet quality bird because that fault is so bad, that to breed her would be very irresponsible of me. But I'm going to wait until she's older and be sure her wings are indeed split before I get rid of her. Anyway, I hope that gives you a better idea of what we're saying when people are talking about qualities.. it's all based off the SOP.
