Silkie thread!

[Urchin]

I got mine "Nutrena Feather Fixer", but they don't like it. Which is a bummer because my lost weight along with their feather loss. A LOT of weight.

I might try that. Pinto's not picky what she eats, but Professor Fluffles is. Cottonball, upon further inspection, doesn't look like she's suffering from scrawny feathers, but she was only broody for a week and really didn't lose much condition. Penguin the cochin is now broody, so I'm beginning to think it never ends.

 

[Sylvester017]

This winter sucks! My silkies had beard lice and will probably lose their beards, now I have one on Tylan for respiratory issues and the exposed flock on Duramycin because they are sneezing. I brought one of my Wyandotte girls in because she had poo all over her fluff only to find nits on her too. Then I went outside to find the only sand not frozen solid in the silkie coop for the flocks to dust bathe in, only to discover our gates are all frozen solid to the ground. After much digging out I was able to pry the coop run door open, get a bucket of sand for the house silkies ( they have been in here for a month) and do it all over again to get sand for the big flock in the barn. OMG first winter with chickens is weraing me out!

Hello kabhyper1: Sounds miserable in winter. In So Calif it's opposite for us. Our misery is in the hot 2-week 3-digit heatwaves & hot weather most of the year plus our State declared drought. I ID'd w/ every account you listed. One of my Silkies had a respiratory problem & had an injection plus 10 days of Tylan from the vet. She breathed so noisily we sat w/ her all night thinking she was dying & took her to the vet first thing in the morning thinking we had to put her down. It was amazing how quickly she got better after the injection.

For lice/mites I have been lucky in 3 years not to have a case of it on the hens. I use an OMRI Poultry Protector once a month on the cleaned out nestboxes in all the cracks, seams, crevices, plus spray directly on the hens' skin per directions. The stuff is not cheap but haven't had one infestation. Some people will use Pymethrin but I prefer the organic OMRI method first & use pesticide as a last resort & haven't needed to yet. Poultry Protector is wonderful stuff. There's also a Mite Protector from the same manufacturer.

We had one Silkie as a house chicken until she was 6 mos & in a diaper. She got so accustomed to daily tush baths from wearing chicken diapers that today we have no problems handling her anywhere on her body. Once in a while a hen gets a really dirty butt so we'll bring her in after roosting, give a warm tush bath using baby shampoo. The baby shampoo is gentle & really loosens the gunk in the butt feathers that warm water alone won't do. With really fluffy butts it takes quite a while to gently finger wash the gunk off the vent feathers. We immediately blowdry the wet feathers on low heat & make sure not to get the skin hot by keeping our fingers close to the feathered skin to keep from overheating. It's amazing how chickens aren't afraid of blowing fans or hairdryers. Our Silkies love to stand in front of the heater fan in winter & the box fans in summer - so cute!

After drying off the wet butt feathers, we spray w/ Poultry Protector on the hen per directions as a preventative measure against lice/mites. Then we look under the wing skin, top of the scalp, under the beard/muff, in the vent area and down the legs for critter inspection. We'll trim toenails if needed, massage feet/legs w/ vitamin E oil & on combs/wattles if dry looking, & give a drop of baby vitamins (usually do vitamins a couple times a week). With vitamins, 2 hens love it & open their beak to drink the drop while the other 2 hens resist so we wet the side of their beak w/ vitamin & eventually they open their beak to get the drop off of them & it leaks into their mouth. We don't like forcing the beak open w/ fingers so the annoying drop on the side of their beak is very effective to get them to open & take a liquid drop. Sometimes they shake their heads & we get splashed w/ vitamin!

For the leg/comb massages we like using vitamin E oil because not only does it soften & protect nicely, it's not greasy. We've used vaseline & A&D ointments but the grease sticks to the feathers & the next day dirt sticks to the grease in the feathers from the dust baths. With vitamin E the oil is still effective as a lubricant & mite preventative without messing up the feathers w/ grease. My hands are soft from the E oil afterwards.

As for dust baths our girls use the whole back yard in any pocket of dirt that suits them. I plan to set up a raised garden 4x4' bed & fill w/sand, ash, & a little white DE. Some heated debates are going on about the safety or effectiveness of DE for chickens but I don't plan on feeding it to them but think it may be helpful to include a little bit of the pure white food grade in their dust bath box.

For worming I use Ivermectin paste 2x a year which my vet has approved. I use the equivalent of one drop per pound of bird on the skin under their wings. My vet is happy that I do this because it makes his diagnosis easier if he knows I'm taking preventative mite/lice/worming measures w/ the birds. Keeping them lice/mite & worm-free is related to better egg production too.

 

[Sylvester017]

Silkies can also have dark brown eyes. Mine have eyes a dark enough shade of brown that unless you're right up next to them and they're in bright light, they look black. I have a buff who's eyes are more amber, which would probably be points off or disqualify him in the show ring, but he's my daughter's pet, so imperfections don't matter.

I dont know the genetics of your birds, but here's the general genetics of silkied feathers -- Silkied feathers are recessive genes. The bird needs two of them to express the typical silkie plumage. So, first generation birds from a hard-feather/silkied feather cross is going to have hard feathers, but carry a hidden gene for silkied feathers. If you breed these first generation birds back to a purebred silkie, there's a 50% chance a chick will end up with silkied feathers and a 50% chance of having hard feathers. If you breed two first generation birds together, then there's a 25% chance you'll get a chick who expresses silkie feathers, a 50% chance they'll be carriers for the silkie gene and a 25% chance they'll have nothing but hard-feather genes. Any more than that, I don't know. That's just what my thirteen-year-old told me from his research. We had a hen whom we gave mystery eggs to to incubate. We knew the biological mother was a silkie, but didn't know if the father was one of the silkie roosters or the bantam cochin rooster. Our babies are purebred silkies, but silkie/cochin mixes would have been cute, too.

I don't know anything about how you get black skin, the right number of toes, turquoise earlobes or the right kind of comb. That while silkie on the left in the last two pictures doesn't look like he has the right kind of comb for a silkie. He probably wouldn't be a good choice for breeding purposes.

Thx Urchin - all my Silkies have the black doll's eyes and it seems to be the norm from everything I've researched. They are so cute when they look at you w/ those shiney round black eyeballs! But I can see where the black can look dark brown in bright light - probably reflecting the red blood vessels at the back of the eye socket. And yes, show competitions are sticklers. With so many Silkies being popularly bred and entered in shows the judges can afford to be picky about details.

Thank u 4 ur input re genes as I don't know that kind of breeding info to pass along to our friend in the U.K. w/ the hard-feathered Silkie cross. My family's preferences have always been to stay w/ established purebreeds in pets, poultry, & livestock since our farming days so cross-breeding knowledge has never been our forte. Thx again - Smiles

 

[TiaRC]

Figure out how the predator got into your garage, and then close off that (and any other) access point.  If the other chickens are also housed in the garage, the predator will almost certainly be back for more.  Sprinkle flour around the building to show footprints (won't work if you have snow--white on white), but if there is snow you should see the footprints without help.  Unless it melt before you can get a look.  So sorry for your loss.

Sounds just like a possum got him.

 

[suebgbr]

Hello. You asked if these birds can be called Silkies yet.Your cute birds definitely have recognizable Silkie features - 5 toes, turquoise earlobes, black skin coloring, facial expression of "Silkies" - except for the FEATHERING. Must be just me but I don't see enough fluffy silky feathering to call these pics "Silkie" yet and my Silkies all have SOLID black eyes - perhaps a single bird photo in better lighting would be helpful to see if your feathering is fluffy. The only time my Silkies don't look silken fluffy is if they are drenched in rain but your photos appear like normal chicken feathers rather than the poofy fluff of Silkie feathering. I believe Silkie tails should be a round ball of fluff unlike the pointed tail feathers that most other breeds possess. Also, in the USA I'm accustomed to the bearded Silkies and it's hard for me to find the non-bearded as show pretty even though both varieties are accepted. Very pretty coloring on your birds - Smiles

Thank you for your response. The thing is, I am trying to get smooth silkies!! I have plenty of fluffy ones but I bred some with Auracana ages ago to get blue eggs and with cochin to get smooth feathers. I am just not sure how long it takes of then breeding the offspring to get back to be allowing to call them silkies again instead of silkie cross. How am I doing?

 

[K Epp]

I believe what you are striving for is what is called Smooth Sizzle. Sizzles have all the characteristics of Silkie, but the Silkie feathers.

 

[suebgbr]

Thank you. I will get on google.......

 

[K Epp]

Look at The Sizzle Thread on here. You will find lots of info and pictures.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: If they don't have silkied feathers, they will never be silkies. What I saw of the birds in the photo is that they all lacked type significantly--their shapes are more like the breeds you crossed to than like silkie.

 

[Lacey1988]

To Lacey: He is so cute. Is he a Partridge? I miss my Partridge roo who got gifted to me as a "pullet" & had to give him back when he started his incessant crowing but he was such a love! Our boy was an outgoing personality but would never classify him as aggressive. What does Incy do that makes him a "terror"? Has it been safe to put him w/ a gentle Polish hen? Just wondering - Smiles

I think he's black, I don't know even the breeder said she didn't know where that copper around his neck came from. He's flogged me three times since I got him. Oh don't worry about Cruella(polish hen) she put him in his place lols. She's the meanest hen I have, if she didn't lay I would swear she was a roo.