Silkie thread!

[peepblessed]

Let me preface this question by saying that I know next to nothing about chicken breeds and am just enjoying the variety of birds we have found for a backyard flock I am not concerned with breeding, since I cannot have a rooster. We have added various breeds and breed variations just to have an interesting group of calm semi quiet birds as pets, with a varietyof colors and sizes in an egg basket as an extra perk.
My kids have fallen for the Silkies, as have I. We bought a pullet at a farm swap who is a family favorite. She is friendly and comical to boot!

We have a few others which I either picked up in a bantam bin at the feed store or have been given. We know our funky chicken above, Bloom, is a pullet. She is our only laying pullet.
The others, we aren't so sure about. People have said they look girly, I want them to be girls.... But then I read things about the comb being big in pics that makes folks think roo.... Our Bloom is def not a roo, but her comb is huge! She has goofy long wattles too . I can figure out that those prob aren't "show" qualities. We don't care at all. We enjoy her just as she is.
But how on earth do you know if they are male or female??? . Here are some of our sweeties. There are all 4-5 months old. They aren't pretty- misting them to keep them cool

I hope they all look girly here too !!

They may all be girls. Not really enough photos to tell. The last one has an expression that makes me think boy. At this age, attitude is a very important part of sexing. The girls have gotten pretty quiet and reserved. The boys stay more active. That first photo is the most boy looking girl I've ever seen!

 

[Suzierd]

Thanks for the info on Penny who is Rusty now, I can't believe my luck now I have to decide which Roo to part with and I'm so attached to all of them its going to be really hard.
Thanks Peepsblessed for the dusting info. Who would you part with?

Or Partrige

 

[Hawkeye95]

awwwwww I feel so loved!

Glad to be back!

I would probably trust a clerk too. Glad it wasn't a judge.

Right?! LOL!! I'm so glad I haven't gotten rid of any birds for that "fault". Sigh. I'm still glad you talked me out of the other bird, but I still may end up selling her this Fall for reasons we've discussed before. I'll be sure to chat with you about it again before I do anything!

I'm going to say incubation issue. I corrected one of the silkies the second time around and her/his toes are perfect, but I caught this one too late. It's not curled.. It's hard to explain. I'll have to take a picture.
My humidity was very low during incubation. It stayed under 30% - but I was told time and time again never add water until day 18, so

and thanks! I love this little blue partridge. She is so fluffy and cute <3

I incubate at really low humidity and hatch with very high humidity-- my incubation is right around 20-30% and at it's high is about 40%, which is when I fill the channel and I start it off. I've never had any foot issues from low humidity. I run my machine dry for several days, too and only fill it back up when my humidity reads below 20% (my gauge reads it as a 0%). I bump my humidity up to 70-75% when I hatch. I put in wet towels and fills the channels up. (I use the Brinsea Octagon) Anyway, I don't think that is your problem. If you continue to have foot problems, then it's likely genetic and you need to figure out which bird is throwing the bad feet and remove it from your breeding pen. If however, this has only happened once, then it could just be a fluke.

Let me preface this question by saying that I know next to nothing about chicken breeds and am just enjoying the variety of birds we have found for a backyard flock I am not concerned with breeding, since I cannot have a rooster. We have added various breeds and breed variations just to have an interesting group of calm semi quiet birds as pets, with a varietyof colors and sizes in an egg basket as an extra perk.
My kids have fallen for the Silkies, as have I. We bought a pullet at a farm swap who is a family favorite. She is friendly and comical to boot!

We have a few others which I either picked up in a bantam bin at the feed store or have been given. We know our funky chicken above, Bloom, is a pullet. She is our only laying pullet.
The others, we aren't so sure about. People have said they look girly, I want them to be girls.... But then I read things about the comb being big in pics that makes folks think roo.... Our Bloom is def not a roo, but her comb is huge! She has goofy long wattles too . I can figure out that those prob aren't "show" qualities. We don't care at all. We enjoy her just as she is.
But how on earth do you know if they are male or female??? . Here are some of our sweeties. There are all 4-5 months old. They aren't pretty- misting them to keep them cool

I hope they all look girly here too !!

everyone looks like a girl except your white one. I'm thinking he looks pretty manly. But hang in there and wait and see!

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

I'm going to say incubation issue. I corrected one of the silkies the second time around and her/his toes are perfect, but I caught this one too late. It's not curled.. It's hard to explain. I'll have to take a picture.
My humidity was very low during incubation. It stayed under 30% - but I was told time and time again never add water until day 18, so

and thanks! I love this little blue partridge. She is so fluffy and cute <3

She is a regular partridge not a blue partridge Blue partridge wouldn't have ANY black, as blue is a dilutor of black, so there wouldn't be any black in a blue bird...and she has the black head...reg. partridge should have the slate (bluish grey) underfluff your girl has.

 

[aoxa]

I incubate at really low humidity and hatch with very high humidity-- my incubation is right around 20-30% and at it's high is about 40%, which is when I fill the channel and I start it off.  I've never had any foot issues from low humidity.  I run my machine dry for several days, too and only fill it back up when my humidity reads below 20% (my gauge reads it as a 0%).  I bump my humidity up to 70-75% when I hatch.  I put in wet towels and fills the channels up.  (I use the Brinsea Octagon)  Anyway, I don't think that is your problem.  If you continue to have foot problems, then it's likely genetic and you need to figure out which bird is throwing the bad feet and remove it from your breeding pen.  If however, this has only happened once, then it could just be a fluke.  

Could just be a fluke, but I've only hatched around 20 silkies. I only had 2 pullets come breeding season, so I know one with the foot issue (white boy) is from Pearl, where the other one with the curled foot came from my other hen Lorraine. Either way, I fixed the second one and didn't even notice the first for the first week or so, and didn't bother after that.

The first hatch was really high - the second was really low. First hatch I didn't have a separate hydrometer, and my incubator humidity is always off by 10% (shows lower than actual %) so I was adding water and keeping it steady around 30-40% when it really was 40-50% days 1-18. First chick pipped and drowned. I use a Genesis 1588.

The hens I have both have perfect feet, as does the father. I currently have another 14 silkie eggs in the bator right now. We'll see if any have toe issues this time around. This time I added a bit of water at day 7 to bump it a bit. The eggs were losing water too quickly for how fresh they were when set.

I also have 4 broodies sitting on silkie eggs, so we can test out to see if their babies will have any issues

 

[aoxa]

[COLOR=800000]She is a regular partridge not a blue partridge Blue partridge wouldn't have ANY black, as blue is a dilutor of black, so there wouldn't be any black in a blue bird...and she has the black head...reg. partridge should have the slate (bluish grey) underfluff your girl has. [/COLOR]

she doesn't have any black on her what-so-ever. Her head is darker blue than her body. It was just the lighting.

Not the best example, but it's not what I would consider 'black' as I have a few that do have black.

This is more black, isn\t it?

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

Blue partridge :


Regular partridge - this girl's head is black with bay (red) highlights coming in....underfluff is smokey slate (blue)


This girl is another version of blue partridge (a dark blue)




Your girl I definitely consider a regular partridge...atleast just me if anything if you were to show, I'd label her partridge not blue partridge.

 

[rjg84]

my silkies are a little dumb but they are cute

 

[aoxa]

[COLOR=800000]Blue partridge : [/COLOR]

[COLOR=800000][/COLOR]
[COLOR=800000]Regular partridge - this girl's head is black with bay (red) highlights coming in....underfluff is smokey slate (blue)[/COLOR]
[COLOR=800000][/COLOR]

[COLOR=800000]This girl is another version of blue partridge (a dark blue) [/COLOR]




[COLOR=800000]Your girl I definitely consider a regular partridge...atleast just me if anything if you were to show, I'd label her partridge not blue partridge. [/COLOR]

Thanks Doesn't matter to me, I was just told that colour was considered blue partridge.

 

[Hawkeye95]

She is a regular partridge not a blue partridge Blue partridge wouldn't have ANY black, as blue is a dilutor of black, so there wouldn't be any black in a blue bird...and she has the black head...reg. partridge should have the slate (bluish grey) underfluff your girl has.

I think I may have a blue partridge. Hatched out of my BBS eggs I had shipped to me. I asked the breeder what happened and she thought maybe it came from her blue partridge group. It's just blue right now with eye liner. It's only about 2.5 months and doesn't look like it's changing colors. Not sure what it is supposed to look like.

Could just be a fluke, but I've only hatched around 20 silkies. I only had 2 pullets come breeding season, so I know one with the foot issue (white boy) is from Pearl, where the other one with the curled foot came from my other hen Lorraine. Either way, I fixed the second one and didn't even notice the first for the first week or so, and didn't bother after that.
The first hatch was really high - the second was really low. First hatch I didn't have a separate hydrometer, and my incubator humidity is always off by 10% (shows lower than actual %) so I was adding water and keeping it steady around 30-40% when it really was 40-50% days 1-18. First chick pipped and drowned. I use a Genesis 1588.
The hens I have both have perfect feet, as does the father. I currently have another 14 silkie eggs in the bator right now. We'll see if any have toe issues this time around. This time I added a bit of water at day 7 to bump it a bit. The eggs were losing water too quickly for how fresh they were when set.
I also have 4 broodies sitting on silkie eggs, so we can test out to see if their babies will have any issues

You can have perfect birds throw some crazy problems. 40-50% is a lot higher than I would go for an extended amount of time. I do hit that for the first day when I fill my water channel, but I let it drop and run it dry until my humidity is below 20%. I'm still not sure how humidity would give you foot issues like that. I don't have personal experience with the genesis 1588, but a friend of mine (nearby) has one and she really likes hers. Although, she only uses it as a hatcher, not for incubating. BUt yeah, just wait and see what you end up getting before you get too excited. If you wind up with more foot issues, then time to reevaluate your parent stock.