Silkie thread!

[Ilovesilkiechickens1]

Hopefully it's just intestinal lining, it's probably a good thing you are treating just in case though!

I've seen some people recommending worming as well when the blood in the stools pops up. Worms may weaken your chickens making them more susceptible to coccidia in the environment.

I've used valbazen to worm my flock in the past. Not sure if it was needed but I do worry about worms so I am considering just doing an annual worming in case.

If it's an option getting a fecal sample to a vet would be really useful to test for coccidia and worms. I know that isn't always doable though.

Once you've completed treatment with the Corid extra vitamins are good (especially so with silkies since they can be prone to vitamin deficiencies). Just make sure not to give any vitamins when you are treating as Corid kills the coccidia by blocking thiamine and if you give extra vitamins during treatment it will make the treatment ineffective.

Thank you very much, you’ve been very helpful. I’ll keep treating with Corid and monitoring their behavior.

 

[LynnaePB]

Here are my chicks. They are about 3-4 weeks old. Can anyone tell me the coloring? They seem mixes of lavender, buff and partridge.


Chick #1 - lavender and buff????View attachment 2289080View attachment 2289081
Chick #2 - partrdridge + lavender?View attachment 2289121View attachment 2289122
Chick #3 - splash/lavender/partdridge/black?????????????????View attachment 2289123

Ah I can see why you are having issues trying to figure colors out with those little guys!

I'm not great with partridge/lavender/buff type coloring as I just don't have much experience with them. I know some users on here know more about those colors so hopefully one of them will be along to help.

To me they all kind of look like some type of partridge. The first one especially looks diluted so I can see why you'd guess lavender might be involved.

Do you have lavender in your flock or did they come from a flock that had lavender? Lavender isn't super common around where I live anyway. I wonder if splash or blue could be involved instead to get the lighter partridges.

 

[The Backyard Bantams]

Oh, and here's a clearer pic of the last chick. She is sitting next to me now

 

[LynnaePB]

Oh, and here's a clearer pic of the last chick. She is sitting next to me now View attachment 2289135

That last little one reminds me of a silver partridge or gray (pretty much the same thing but with some difference in pencilling that I don't fully understand).

 

[The Backyard Bantams]

Ah I can see why you are having issues trying to figure colors out with those little guys!

I'm not great with partridge/lavender/buff type coloring as I just don't have much experience with them. I know some users on here know more about those colors so hopefully one of them will be along to help.

To me they all kind of look like some type of partridge. The first one especially looks diluted so I can see why you'd guess lavender might be involved.

Do you have lavender in your flock or did they come from a flock that had lavender? Lavender isn't super common around where I live anyway. I wonder if splash or blue could be involved instead to get the lighter partridges.

I'm not sure, the guy only had mixes. I made a thread on the whole story, long story short, the guy lied about the price and made me pay double, $20 per chick. He said he had "every colour of silkie", but only had these guys when we came. I don't mind, I love them anyway, but if I had gotten to choose I would've picked plain colours, like lavender, white and splash.

It's so hard to find pictures of mixed colour silkies :C

Does anyone have any???

 

[The Backyard Bantams]

I hope they are pure silkies, I'm not showing them or anything (just pets), but I had to pay a lot :c

My mum was not impressed! We didn't have enough money for the eighth chick

I have no idea what his flock is like, he has his main flock at a farm, I just went to his strange property.

If you want more info, read this thread with the whole adventure.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-story-of-how-i-got-my-fuzzy-nuggets.1406574/

 

[LynnaePB]

I hope they are pure silkies, I'm not showing them or anything (just pets), but I had to pay a lot :c

My mum was not impressed! We didn't have enough money for the eighth chick

I have no idea what his flock is like, he has his main flock at a farm, I just went to his strange property.

Aww I'm sorry you were lied to like that! I don't know how much silkie chicks go for in Australia but here 20 would be a lot for a chick.

I only charge 5 each for my little guys under a month old right now since I'm still working on some issues in my flock. I tried to buy hatching eggs from breeders with nice stock too, most of the eggs bought to start my foundation flock were not cheap.

Your babies do look like they are probably full silkie to me. No way to know the quality until they are older though.

 

[The Backyard Bantams]

Aww I'm sorry you were lied to like that! I don't know how much silkie chicks go for in Australia but here 20 would be a lot for a chick.

I only charge 5 each for my little guys under a month old right now since I'm still working on some issues in my flock. I tried to buy hatching eggs from breeders with nice stock too, most of the eggs bought to start my foundation flock were not cheap.

Your babies do look like they are probably full silkie to me. No way to know the quality until they are older though.

They have all of the characteristics, but what confuses me is that they don't look the same as all the pictures I see. All of the silkies online are perfect fluff puffs, mine have strange little wing feathers and are much more scraggly. Maybe they are just in an awkward phase of feathering? I love them anyway, they are just as cute!

 

[LynnaePB]

They have all of the characteristics, but what confuses me is that they don't look the same as all the pictures I see. All of the silkies online are perfect fluff puffs, mine have strange little wing feathers and are much more scraggly. Maybe they are just in an awkward phase of feathering? I love them anyway, they are just as cute!

Your little cuties look like they are pretty normal for silkies at their age to me.

A lot of the time it takes them a while to really get that nice fluffy look. I've had silkie pullets that looked pretty scrawny at 4 months that really filled out nicely by 6. I have seen some pretty young silkies (around 2 months) looking really nice but that isn't really typical from what I've seen. They often look pretty scraggly and awkward for a few months.

I hope your little guys turn out the way you are hoping and are nice quality when grown. It'll definitely be a bit before you'll really be able to tell though. After reading your story about where you got them who knows what quality they might be, hopefully it is interesting watching them grow and trying to find out though.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

I love the pictures!

Oh wow that pairing really did a number on those feathers. If I hadn't seen the parents I would have thought they might be frazzles with two copies of the frizzle gene. Still cute though! I almost wonder if your NN rooster has really subtle frizzle feathers (they don't really look like it but maybe on some of the saddle feathers)? It could just be the NN gene mixing with one copy of the frizzle gene makes the feathers in the offspring sparser though.

I'd call mom a frizzled satin. Satins are bred to the same standard as silkies but they either have smooth or non-silkied frizzled feathers rather than the regular silkie feathers or silkied frizzled feathers). Some people consider smooth feathered and frizzle feathered satins to still be silkies but it's kind of a debated topic. Most people when buying silkies expect those silkies to have silkied feathers so if I were selling silkies and satins I'd want to specify between the two to ensure people would be getting the type they wanted.

Satins aren't technically a recognized breed at this point, but I do know a lot of breeders are trying to get them recognized.

I would call those offspring satin/turken crosses. You could call them satin/NN crosses but since the NN gene has been bred into silkies and those silkies are called NN silkies (often nicknamed showgirls) it might cause confusion (people may assume you crossed a NN silkie and a satin rather than a regular full sized NN). It gets confusing when breed names go along with a gene.

Here is an image I pulled off google that actually shows what I'm talking about when I talk about silkies vs satins and feather types. Maybe it's helpful? I know seeing things rather than just having them explained is helpful for me anyway.

View attachment 2288620

Thank you. NN frizzle roo bred my polish hen before he died. I got one with the blue and gold frizle feathers, one golden laced, blue and gold, white with some buff feathers, and one with no NN but is blue and gold with frizzle feathers. The very funny looking. I going to be the regular NN roo back to the frizzle satin(silkie mutt) to get another blue and gold frizzle roo. Off topic if you like NNs I got a Cornish Cross NN!