Silkie thread!

[I<3MyChickens-Jewel&Flash]

How old can you tell a cockerel is. His spirs less than an inch. Maybe half an inch. The guy said 10 months but he's smaller than my year old hen.

 

[PaintedFeathers]

How old can you tell a cockerel is. His spirs less than an inch. Maybe half an inch. The guy said 10 months but he's smaller than my year old hen.

If he has spurs he's deffinitely older. My 8 month old doesn't even have spurs yet

 

[buttercup95]

What temperatures are you getting? I am in Nor Cal and its getting "cool" (49 at night) but not cold here.

Silkies can tolerate cold, and I had some birds last year playing in the snow. I think that's what their foot feathers are good for - they make great snowshoes!

I haven't put any of my chicks outside at 3 weeks - but when they get all their main body feathers (silkied or regular) they go outside. I think that is usually around 4-5 weeks. If they have cuddle buddies they should be fine.

I'm getting between 45 and 55. lol I guess being in California I forget what "cold" really is. I think I'll play it safe and wait another week. They don't have quite all of their feathers yet, but these are my first so it's a little hard to distinguish between down feathers and silkie feathers.

 

[B J Hopkins]

I'm getting so mad at Zeek, twice now I caught him grabbing a baby and holding it with his beak like he was going to mate it as the baby screamed its head off! WTH! Doesn't he know their still baby's, Dorothy the first one. Hatched will be 2 months old tomorrow. I yelled at him and he stopped and looked at me like what? I wasn't doing any thing. I just don't know what to do, I don't have any place to separate him. but guess that's out for sure now.Anybody else have this problem?

Yes! My 4mo old cockerel is doing the same thing to his 2mo old siblings. His comb is turning redish but he's yet to try to crow. I had so hoped he was a she.

 

[ChickNmamma]

maybe it will live afterall. it is lifting its head. Maybe it was just too exhausted to try at first??

They are really tired right after they hatch - it may be fine. Next time do not stagger the hatches like that, its hard on the babies. Upping the humidity too early can cause DIS from chicks that can't loose enough moisture to hatch and they get stuck also. I hope you are using weight to gauge how much moisture the eggs need to loose?

If you have more staggered like that I would try turning on the turner three times a day and only letting the eggs turn that much. That's the minimum eggs need to hatch - and probably the maximum I would turn hatching eggs. I hope you get lots to hatch, I found trying to do staggered hatches in my incubator (and its a big cabinet incubator and should be able to handle it) resulted in a very poor hatch rate and 40% DIS from the ones that made it to lockdown. This was both with my eggs and shipped eggs, the shipped eggs just had fewer that made it to lockdown.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
Welcome to the wonderful world of Silkies - where they look like cute chicks for EVER!

When the firecrackers fall off their tails and they just look like dandelion seed pods then they have their adult feathers. If you put them outside and they just huddle together and peep then its too cold. If they run around and scratch and do chicken things then its not too cold. I put mine out in a cat carrier with a piece of carpet inside - when they all went inside the cat carrier I brought them in and put them in the front room (cooler) so they would continue to grow their feathers. Sometimes I think we make it too warm for the babies and that delays their feather growth. I know my babies outside have much more feathering at two weeks than my inside ones ever did.

 

[sheeshshe]

They are really tired right after they hatch - it may be fine. Next time do not stagger the hatches like that, its hard on the babies. Upping the humidity too early can cause DIS from chicks that can't loose enough moisture to hatch and they get stuck also. I hope you are using weight to gauge how much moisture the eggs need to loose?

If you have more staggered like that I would try turning on the turner three times a day and only letting the eggs turn that much. That's the minimum eggs need to hatch - and probably the maximum I would turn hatching eggs. I hope you get lots to hatch, I found trying to do staggered hatches in my incubator (and its a big cabinet incubator and should be able to handle it) resulted in a very poor hatch rate and 40% DIS from the ones that made it to lockdown. This was both with my eggs and shipped eggs, the shipped eggs just had fewer that made it to lockdown.

hopefully they all hatch and none die like that guess I didn't know. I thought it was ok. next time I"ll do better I guess. I only have 1 hen laying right now, and only every other egg was fertile. I wasn't even sure if she was fertile yet, and I didn't expect any to grow. so once I saw that one was growing, I started saving others. but only half were fertile. so over the course of two weeks, I ended up with these 4 eggs. Next time I'll try saving them first, now that I know she is fertile. although, I probably won't get any until spring now. she's sitting on an egg right now, went broody last week.

 

[sheeshshe]

Oh, and BTW, the chick is standing this morning, yeah!

 

[sheeshshe]

is there anything I can do quickly to make a quick hatching box?

 

[sheeshshe]

I wonder... I could put all the eggs under my broody, and just take the ones that are going to hatch and hatch them in the incubator. that way she'll continue to sit on the eggs that she has and not stop when she has a chick.