Silkie thread!

[fishermans wife]

Yep, space is the most important factor. The more he better. Mine have grown up together and most of the time they are great mates. Every now and then there will be a scrap up.
I have a sin bin, for any repeat offenders.

Haha! I love the "sin bin" that is hillarious!

 

[RussianChickens]

Could any one here hep me with my show silkie? I got her about 2 months ago and she had one of those gorgeous big fluffy crests and now its falling out. Not mites or other chickens. Here's my post from the EDC thread. Please help! I love this hen and its killing me to watch her crest disintegrate like this.
Feel free to PM me or post. any help appreciated thanks!

~~~~

My lovely black silkie hen had one of those big beautiful lush bushy show crests until about a month ago when it started falling out. It started as a small patch in the back and sides. I treated her for mites as she was scratching her head and I found some bugs. Took care for the problem and feathers began to grow. Now they are again falling out despite her being treated for mites (cant find a single one either) and her scalp looks dry and crusty. I keep looking but she does not appear to be scratching it when ever I see her. She is alone in her pen with no other chickens to pluck her crest.
This time her whole head is losing feathers and her crest is hopeless compared to what it was before.

Only her crest is affected. I have her on dumor layer feed as she is laying and kickin chicken poultry conditioner for oils and what not. Shes broody on some eggs right now but i don't think broody would make a diff as she wasn't when this started.

I keep them all UTD on mites and worms monthly and I've done several thorough inspections and they all come up clean. And believe me I've looked and dusted and sprayed and treated everything imaginable. To the point I worry that any more treating would make her feathers fall out from over use of mite stuffs. Shes on frontline for mites with the rest of my flock.

Nothing seams to help her feather loss. I can't figure out why or how to stop it. I have a show in October and shes darn near bald now!

What am I doing to make her feathers fall out!?!? How do I get them back?

Help!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I have a few questions concerning roos. I have a lot of them. Up to seven. Two are confirmed and three more look and act like roosters, so I don't expect to be seeing any eggs from them in future. So we'll say five to seven roosters. That leaves 22 to 26 pullets. I have a mixed coop of bantams and large fowl. All the large fowl (22 of them) are pullets. I don't have any problems with the large fowl bullying the bantams. I have one bantam cochin roo, the rest silkies. All the silkies and cochins are around three to four months old, the large fowl pullets are just over five months old. So, the roosters are still rather low on the pecking order. Now for the questions ... Is this too many roos for my flock? I've read that the flock will be fine with this many roosters as long as they grew up together and have space to get away from each other. I've also heard that it's too many for a small flock and they'll overbreed the hens.

Show breeders often pair birds in pairs or trios, so your ratio is fine.


Will large fowl pullets accept bantam roosters as mates? They sure don't show them any respect right now -- they either ignore them or occasionally peck at them when the roos have something they want. But right now I have five or six pullets laying and no roosters who are near ready to start romancing the ladies.

WHere there is a will, there is a way. Your largefowl hens don;t accept them now because they are half-grwn, not because they are bantams.


If this is an okay set up, how do roosters work this out? I know with a couple of roosters you get a dominant and submissive rooster, but is alpha possible here? How's the alpha going to keep six other males in line? He's going to have to be one very alert rooster. Or am I going to see little harems form?

They will work it out among themselves, and yes, you will see groupings, but don;t be surprised if more than one rooster is in a smaller flock.


The male cochin already has a little flock of his own going consisting of the two cochin pullets, a suspected male silkie and an unknown silkie that I'm hoping is female. I don't know why the cochin wants the suspected male in his flock, but he chases him back to the others if the male silkie strays too far.

Or as I suspect is none of this going to work and I'm going to have to build the boys their own bachelor pad? They're pets, so they're not going anywhere, except maybe to new digs.

That works, too.


If temperments matter, so far nobody's acting overly mean or aggressive. The confirmed silkie roo has started asserting himself against the lower ranked hens. If they peck him, he pecks back and most times the pullets back down. There's a bit of sparring between the boys, but no serious fights. They mostly stare each other down until one charges towards the other, chasing him away. Occasionally they'll fly feet first at each other, but the loser backs down quickly.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Could any one here hep me with my show silkie? I got her about 2 months ago and she had one of those gorgeous big fluffy crests and now its falling out. Not mites or other chickens. Here's my post from the EDC thread. Please help! I love this hen and its killing me to watch her crest disintegrate like this.
Feel free to PM me or post. any help appreciated thanks!

~~~~

My lovely black silkie hen had one of those big beautiful lush bushy show crests until about a month ago when it started falling out. It started as a small patch in the back and sides. I treated her for mites as she was scratching her head and I found some bugs. Took care for the problem and feathers began to grow. Now they are again falling out despite her being treated for mites (cant find a single one either) and her scalp looks dry and crusty. I keep looking but she does not appear to be scratching it when ever I see her. She is alone in her pen with no other chickens to pluck her crest.
This time her whole head is losing feathers and her crest is hopeless compared to what it was before.

Only her crest is affected. I have her on dumor layer feed as she is laying and kickin chicken poultry conditioner for oils and what not. Shes broody on some eggs right now but i don't think broody would make a diff as she wasn't when this started.

I keep them all UTD on mites and worms monthly and I've done several thorough inspections and they all come up clean. And believe me I've looked and dusted and sprayed and treated everything imaginable. To the point I worry that any more treating would make her feathers fall out from over use of mite stuffs. Shes on frontline for mites with the rest of my flock.

Nothing seams to help her feather loss. I can't figure out why or how to stop it. I have a show in October and shes darn near bald now!

What am I doing to make her feathers fall out!?!? How do I get them back?

Help!!

If you always use the same products, your birds might have built up a resistance to it. Give her a bath with a dog/cat flea/tick shampoo, and make sure to thoroughly rub the shampoo into her scalp and leave it for the recommended time before rinsing. Not all mites and lice are visible to the naked eye. Also, some mites only emerge from cracks and crevasses at night to feed on the bird, so even with carefully looking through her featehrs you might not find them.

 

[PsycoPeep]

Quote:
LOL! Yes, clear as mudd!

 

[PsycoPeep]

Quote:another picture. Many days in are you?

Ok, yes, I've seen eggs like that and threw most of them out. Today's day 14. I candled again last night and threw out 5 more. Dang. I'm loosing everything!

 

[ESofVA]

I had a couple that looked like that!!! My D'Uccle roo would catch them by the head feathers and wouldn't let loose until he had pulled hard enough that they came out. The LF hens would drag him literally around the pen. After that, the next few minutes he had to spend getting that mouthful of feathers out of his mouth!

 

[Urchin]

Yep, space is the most important factor. The more he better. Mine have grown up together and most of the time they are great mates. Every now and then there will be a scrap up.
I have a sin bin, for any repeat offenders.

How much room do they have? I have 6/7 roos both LF and bantam and they coexist just fine. They sleep in the barn at night and free range during the day going their separate ways.

They have quite a bit of room. We have the coop they can roam in and out of all day, a small covered yard to get out of the weather and a much larger area for them to forage in. I'm not sure of the size of it, but every single chicken can be out in it and everybody has personal space.

 

[sconner]

Question about free-ranging Silkies. Last year I raised 6 Silkie chicks in a chicken tractor. As they older and bigger, I started letting them free-range in my fully-fenced yard. I also had a 100 SF pen built for them. But they got so spoiled with the free-ranging that they would literally scream the whole time if I put them in the pen for safety when I had to leave the house. We have a big predator problem here (wild cats, hawks, and possums) so I was not comfortable leaving them out when I was not around, but they were so unhappy when I locked them up in the pen that I wound up giving them to a full-time free-ranging home. I am starting over with some younger birds in the tractor, and plan to move them to the pen soon and never let them free-range so they don't get spoiled and they will accept the the pen as "their world". Its plenty big enough for 3-4 chicks, and has grass, sand, etc.

The problem is, I would like to let the out in the yard sometimes when I am home. But how do I balance letting them get some "free time", with not letting them get spoiled and expect to be out all the time? I have read that people just let their chickens out for a little bit in the evening - and that makes sense to me cause then the chickens won't start screaming to be let out at sun-up like my original batch. So is that the answer?

Also, any idea what this Silkie may be mixed with? This chick and its sibling were given to me when they were 2-weeks old as "Silkies". They have the head poofs, 5 toes, feathered feet, etc. But with the light-colored feet and beaks, longer beaks, and that weird comb growing in on this one, I suspect its not full Silkie and am curious what it may be mixed with to produce that type of comb. And does that comb indicate "rooster"? TIA! (sorry, I wasn't able to get the picture any bigger to see more detail so maybe someone can magnify it)

 

[sconner]

I took some better pictures. That's his "sister" in front of him. She's more of a paint coloring, while he seems more "splash" and has buff coloring also coming in on his shoulders. Not very attractive heads, but they are just pets to me. I was given a picture of their parents and I'm pretty sure they were brother/sister, which may explain their poor quality characteristics.