Silkie thread!

[subhanalah]

Hi subhanalah - isn't it funny how one day birds go nuts for a food, totally ignore it on another day, and then go nuts for it again on another day? Cucumbers can drive mine into a frenzy on one day and then they barely touch it on another. I noticed that maybe their crop is too full sometimes and they ignore even their favorite food until they sit and snooze for a while to digest. Your chicks must be darling at 5 weeks. I lost a Dominique chick last September at 19 days old to a seizure and she was just starting to get her juvie feathers so I never got to see her in her dinosaur stage - sad :-(

hahaha, I LOVE the dinosaur stage! I love watching them run to and from the brooder, or when they have something they think may be tasty. They still love to cuddle, which I'm happy about, someone told me that they would grow out of it. Maybe they just haven't reached that stage yet hahaha.
Thanks for the great posts, sylvester.

 

[Sylvester017]

hahaha, I LOVE the dinosaur stage! I love watching them run to and from the brooder, or when they have something they think may be tasty. They still love to cuddle, which I'm happy about, someone told me that they would grow out of it. Maybe they just haven't reached that stage yet hahaha.
Thanks for the great posts, sylvester.

When we had only one hen we were her flock and she loved being by us outdoors - we got her as an adult rescue so she probably should've had a flockmate but I couldn't handle more than one pet at the time for the kids. We had no idea how old she was and lost her a year later - she was a nice large NHR. We loved watching her pantaloon fluffy butt as she ran up and down the tomato garden looking for worms, grubs, spiders, and grasshoppers. She was very good about leaving all the plants alone.

I saw a youtube video where one man had one BR pullet for a pet raised from a chick and she always sat on his shoulder as an adult. They lost her at 4 years old but from her chick video she behaved just like our Dominique chick. In fact the founding breed for BRs is the Dominique with game bird crossed to make the BR a larger breed.

We've had BRs and Doms before and prefer the smaller dual-purpose Doms to go easier on the feed bill plus try to preserve a rarer heritage breed. The personalities are similar in the breeds but the Dom hens are just a bit calmer and curious plus a bit nicer to flockmates. The Doms give average 4 eggs/wk compared to BRs average 5 eggs/week so we went with the smaller Dom at 5-lb rather than the BR at 6+ lbs. Smaller dual-purpose hen with a lighter appetite and good foraging plus the Doms will brood 1 or 2x a year if you need more chicks. I wish we weren't zone limited or I'd get a couple more Dom pullets again. My current girls get along just right so don't want to upset the apple cart with new pullets until these get too old to lay any more.

There are so many breeds I love for various reasons other than just their looks but I had to do very selective research for our zone restriction, climate, and flock temperament compatibility.

Thank you for the nice comments - Smiles

 

[bantambury]

I never realized how violent silkie rooster are to other roosters.....my silkie I had given back to my brooder today because I had come to my coop finding my Japanese bantam like this with the back of his comb bit off:


they had grown up with eachother....which I found odd.

 

[subhanalah]

Wow! That's some serious damage.

 

[austinbndr28]

I never realized how violent silkie rooster are to other roosters.....my silkie I had given back to my brooder today because I had come to my coop finding my Japanese bantam like this with the back of his comb bit off:


they had grown up with eachother....which I found odd.

Most roosters are mean to other roosters at this time of year their hormones are kicking in and your lucky that's all that happened. A couple weeks ago when it warmed up here I had a pen with 10 roosters in it and they were all fighting one was dead on site and the rest were all bloody and beat. Had to separate immediately.

 

[bantambury]

Most roosters are mean to other roosters at this time of year their hormones are kicking in and your lucky that's all that happened. A couple weeks ago when it warmed up here I had a pen with 10 roosters in it and they were all fighting one was dead on site and the rest were all bloody and beat. Had to separate immediately.

wow! glad that didn't happen.....are they all wonky in the spring because they want to have fun with the gals and that's normally family making time for birds?

do you think it was the silkie roo who did it? could he just bite it off? I didn't see barely any blood on him which I thought was weird.....and I don't think he got his comb caught anywhere....

 

[bantambury]

Wow! That's some serious damage.

not really. the blood just makes everything look worse.....the roos can do ALOT worse to eachother.

 

[Sylvester017]

wow! glad that didn't happen.....are they all wonky in the spring because they want to have fun with the gals and that's normally family making time for birds?

do you think it was the silkie roo who did it? could he just bite it off? I didn't see barely any blood on him which I thought was weird.....and I don't think he got his comb caught anywhere....

I never had 2 roos together - and never would even if I could have them in my zone. My Silkie girls are just as combative. My two girls will really get into pecking wars when they are particularly broody. I've seen my older Partridge hen pull a crest feather out of the Black Silkie hen at 4 feet in mid-air. After one or two combative bouts, they figure out their place in the flock and all is calm again. I'd much rather have two bantams struggle with each other than one LF and one bantam. I had to re-home two LF because the 2-lb Silkies didn't have an equal chance to defend themselves and didn't want to wait to see blood anywhere! At the moment my 2 LFs are submissive to the Silkies and I like it that way.

 

[kabhyper1]

It must depend on the roos. I have four boys in my silkie flock they do fine. I have 3 big boys in my large fowl flock that do fine also.

 

[bantambury]

I never had 2 roos together - and never would even if I could have them in my zone. My Silkie girls are just as combative. My two girls will really get into pecking wars when they are particularly broody. I've seen my older Partridge hen pull a crest feather out of the Black Silkie hen at 4 feet in mid-air. After one or two combative bouts, they figure out their place in the flock and all is calm again. I'd much rather have two bantams struggle with each other than one LF and one bantam. I had to re-home two LF because the 2-lb Silkies didn't have an equal chance to defend themselves and didn't want to wait to see blood anywhere! At the moment my 2 LFs are submissive to the Silkies and I like it that way.

I hate seeing my babies bleed.