Silkie thread!

[Iluvmysilkies]

Hard to say from the pics, but it could be a little oedema , from a previous injury. Have you felt around the vent and tummy area? Ill navel or mushy chick disease will leave their little abdomen swollen .

What should I do for this? Her stomache and vent look fine. No swelling, she's just thinner and light weight then the others. Hasent been eating well, poor thing. I am giving her polyvisol twice a day and helping her get water just to make sure she's drinking enough since I cant notice if she is or not.

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

Also, today I was talking to a lady who told me that there are a few very nice silkie breeders here in Utah and that I could find them here on BYC? Is that true? How would I locate them?

 

[Fancychooklady]

 What should I do for this? Her stomache and vent look fine. No swelling, she's just thinner and light weight then the others. Hasent been eating well, poor thing. I am giving her polyvisol twice a day and helping her get water just to make sure she's drinking enough since I cant notice if she is or not.

Just keep the water and feed up to her. Did you try the scrambled egg ?
Go to the search bar at the top of the page and type in Silkie breeders. What part of the states are you in ?

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

Just keep the water and feed up to her. Did you try the scrambled egg ?
Go to the search bar at the top of the page and type in Silkie breeders. What part of the states are you in ?

I havent yet but I plan on going to the store tomorrow and i'll get some eggs. Are scrambled eggs a healthy snack for everyone even the healthy ones? Should I mix something in with it? I am in Lindon, Ut.

 

[subhanalah]

I havent yet but I plan on going to the store tomorrow and i'll get some eggs. Are scrambled eggs a healthy snack for everyone even the healthy ones? Should I mix something in with it? I am in Lindon, Ut. 

I like watching them fight over the hard boiled eggs, I just throw them in whole, you could probably do the same with scrambled! I really want some eggs to eat, but I'm all out

 

[subhanalah]

Has anyone else noticed that baby silkies don't realize that they can't fly?

 

[Fancychooklady]

I havent yet but I plan on going to the store tomorrow and i'll get some eggs. Are scrambled eggs a healthy snack for everyone even the healthy ones? Should I mix something in with it? I am in Lindon, Ut. 

Yes scrambled egg are good for all of them. You can mix a bit of plain Greek yoghurt in and also hide a drop of polyvisol in there.

 

[Sylvester017]

2 with chest infections getting some 'Mummy time' in my bed

This is a new one to me - what is a chest infection? A cold? Sniffles? Skin eczema? They are so little!

 

[Sylvester017]

I have 5 Silkies and one Sizzle.. They are about 2 months old. I know I cant put them in my coop with my big girls....but I wanted to know if silkies needed anything specific in their coop? I have heard they dont roost and I have heard that they wont get out of the rain so I need a roof covering their whole enclosure... Thoughts? PS: We are located in Florida.

From day one in the coop all my Silkies sleep in the nestboxes. They get on the perches during the day but at dusk they do their bedtime talking and cooing and climb the ramp slowly or jump up to the nestboxes. They like the cozy round-holed nestboxes for privacy and our boxes are so roomy 3 fit comfortably together in one if they want. One time I found 4 chickens in one box! Our perches are about 20 inches off the floor and so is the nestbox ledge.

Some people say Silkies pile up on the floor of a coop and I never heard of that before because ours always slept in the boxes. When we have a sick Silkie in the house we set up a Kidz Homz lidded storage bin with straw for them in the indoor pen to use for laying eggs but they sleep in them too. Guess we have odd Silkies LOL.

When it rains, and in fact every evening at dusk, we tarp the entire 4x6 coop down to the patio stones after closing their door for the night. Keeps wind or rain out and protects the coop wood from moisture.

Seems like coop configurations are what determine where a hen will choose to sleep. Our low perch probably didn't make our Silkies feel as secure as the round-holed cubby nestboxes.

 

[Sylvester017]

I will endeavour to get a pic. We just used recycled floorboards. Cut them off at the desired length and drilled 1-11/2 inch pickets horizontally from top to bottom at 3 inch apart. Hubby drilled a hole in the top , put a screw in the nest box, so that the ladder can lock in. Otherwise the ladder will end up on the floor.

We had to do a lot of sanding when we made our new ramp. The wood was too rough for chicken's feet IMO and we spent a day sanding down all the wood and rounding square corners. The wood steps were smoother but still had enough "grab" for their feet. One Silkie likes it so much she savours the climb slowly up to her nestbox to sleep. The younger Silkie takes a quick run up it to jump into her box. The picture below shows the narrow ramp that came with the coop and the newer wider ramp next to it. The little ramp had 7 steps but we put 6 steps so that they were still close enough (4 inches apart) for the Silkies to comfortably use and for the LF as well. We never used the skimpy little ramp because it was lightweight and the chickens were always knocking it down so we stopped using it. There was no way to secure a ramp to the nestbox ledge because a built-in low perch is in the way when we needed to lift it up for cleaning. One of our Silkies got knocked off the nestbox ledge by a kooky spooky klutzy Ameraucana and got bruised so we built the new heavier wider ramp to give the Silkies a chance to get out of her way. The Ameraucana is a sweetie but klutzy. The ramp is not hinged or hooked to the ledge. We used a flat heavy block wall topper brick at the base and the heavy ramp is very secure this way - pounds better than the old skimpy ramp that came with the coop.