Silkie thread!

[sonderah]

It's Kismet that you brought up bipolar - Smiles

It happens I know some people who are classed under the Bipolar Umbrella - General Anxiety Disorder, Manic-Depressives, Suicidal tendencies, Schizophrenia, and a couple more I can't remember. It can be anything from a minor symptom to all-out personality disorders bordering on insanity. I personally am glad it is a condition that's over-diagnosed - it might've saved my first marriage had this been a more well-known or well-publicized medical condition. Problem is that Bipolars don't think anything is wrong, mask/hide the symptoms, blame others or other circumstances for their behavior. My ex still doesn't think there's anything wrong and it's everyone else's fault for his/her uncontrollable behavior. My ex mother-in-law and her sister were Bipolars and had bizarre behaviors - seems to run in families. Without treatment behaviors get progressively worse with age.

Poor actress Patty Duke thought she was crazy until she got properly diagnosed and treated which is another whole bowl of wax to go through to find the right combination of medications to treat it. Bipolar used to be a stigma but with proper diagnosis doesn't have to be anymore just like Autism, CP, ADD, etc.

Yes, Bipolar can be a sensitive issue but I don't think it's confined to humans - I've seen some bizarre behavior in some of my hormonal hens LOL

I am diagnosed with Bipolar. So I know some people can be very sensitive about it too. Maybe not the next day. U just never know. I went though several years of hell!!! Come to find out, my hormones were completely insane! So, 1 pill a day now helps my BP, and hormone therapy combined, I can actually function most days! But if I forget to take either..... Look out kiddos!! Sucks, it just is what it is.

 

[CrazyChookLady5]

Hi everyone
I LOVE silkies, I have 1 hen and 2 roos, (I use to have 4 hens and 3 roos but lots have dies over the past few months?!!) and I ordered 12 fertile eggs of a ladie of BYC and im gonna hatch them out, from the pictures of her other silkies, the one im gonna hatch out will be beautiful!
this is my hen silkie!

 

[BelleFarm]

Here's a few of my tsc silkies. They seem to have a lot more attitude than my other chicks.

Cute!

 

[Sylvester017]

Hi everyone
I LOVE silkies, I have 1 hen and 2 roos, (I use to have 4 hens and 3 roos but lots have dies over the past few months?!!) and I ordered 12 fertile eggs of a ladie of BYC and im gonna hatch them out, from the pictures of her other silkies, the one im gonna hatch out will be beautiful!
this is my hen silkie!

Oh boy! We'll get more Australian Silkies to admire! Are your Silkies the bantams or the LF Silkies? The USA Silkies I'm accustomed to seeing mostly are the bearded bantams. I'm not a fan of Show Girls or non-bearded but EVERY Silkie is still a sweetie! It's amazing how these birds are so wildly popular! I love these guys and currently have one invalid recuperating in the house - she is getting better every day from her doctor visit.

 

[chick rookie]

Nice digs!

We're gonna use a pop-up canopy since we have an extra one in the garage. We don't get snow - the Sun is harder on the covers than any other weather. We just buy a new tarp and use ball tarp fasteners clipped to the canopy frame whenever the tops get old.

We'll try heavy weights on the canopy legs and if it doesn't hold down then we'll bury the legs into the soil like the 1st canopy we have set up for the chickens' shade in the backyard. We had 100 mph Santa Ana wind gusts and the canopy top shredded and blew away - who knows where - but the buried frame stayed anchored in the soil.

Using tarps is much cheaper than new canopy fabrics and if fastened down nicely with reusable ball tarp fasteners can look as nice as a new expensive fitted cover. Instead of paying $50-$100 for a fitted cover every year we pay around $10 for a tarp that can look fairly nice and lasts just as long as the expensive fitted cover. It's nice that tarps are starting to come in all sorts of colors now - black, brown, silver, green, and the traditional blues. I just wish they'd stop being Made in China as there are always hazardous warnings on nearly everything made from there.

Sounds like you have it all figured out nicely... they do make a tarp in the USA it is camo only and we got it from Gander Mt. and it was 12.00 for an 8x10. but I cant remember who the maker was.

 

[sonderah]

Speaking of tarps!!! Oh my Thank you! In the chaos of penning up turkeys b4 they get shot, I forgot I still need to make a covered area in my bantam run!! Spring will actually arrive sometime this year, & it'll be downpour central!! :/

 

[A1momof3]

I have been looking for silkie chicks in my area of Texas but haven't found a breeder yet but my question is can you run silkies in the same pen and coop as RIR and BR?

 

[RockerHen]

I have been looking for silkie chicks in my area of Texas but haven't found a breeder yet but my question is can you run silkies in the same pen and coop as RIR and BR?

If you raise them all from chicks together, possibly. I wouldn't recommend adding silkies to a pen of large fowl like RIR if they haven't grown up together--normal flock pecking order politics may end up seriously injuring the smaller and more fragile silkies. I personally keep my breeds penned separately, but allow them to free range together.

 

[Sylvester017]

Sounds like you have it all figured out nicely... they do make a tarp in the USA it is camo only and we got it from Gander Mt. and it was 12.00 for an 8x10. but I cant remember who the maker was.

Yes, I forgot the camo tarps - saw them but a little too hunter/duck blind/military for my liking. But the more I think about it the more I like the idea. I may try it next year - except the size tarp we use is 11x11 on our 9' canopy. It gives us about a 2- foot overhang on 2 of the canopy sides for more shade/privacy from prying neighbors. One neighbor is really helpful but another one is nothing but a selfish snoop - needless to say which one gets a free dozen eggs or vegetables from our garden? The selfish neighbor's dog barks piercingly all night long when they're gone from home but our hens sleep through it - love chickens - I've never heard a hen bark all night, have you?

 

[Sylvester017]

I have been looking for silkie chicks in my area of Texas but haven't found a breeder yet but my question is can you run silkies in the same pen and coop as RIR and BR?

My answer emphatically is NO. Even if raised together as chicks, the larger juveniles will pick on the smaller juveniles. Our two 1-day-old Partridge Silkies grew up in a group of other 1-day-old LF but as juveniles the littler Silkies had to hide all day from the bigger LF juveniles who chased them around the pen. Too stressful for the bantams. I've also had 2 Ameraucana juveniles 2-1/2 months old and the larger of the two kept pecking on the smaller one. With LF and bantams the results could be injurious to the bantams. Do what you want but this is advice I wish I heeded when I first read about it years ago. I've had nothing but problems mixing LF with Silkies. I just came back from the doctor with one injured Silkie because a LF hen knocked her to the ground from the nestbox and Silkies can't fly to break a hard fall. LF are clumsy in their actions around Silkies - my LF aren't mean but certainly clumsy.