Silkie thread!

[Suzierd]

When do you guys let your momma hens and chicks go out in the run with the rest if the chickens? No worry a about the Rooster he loves the chicks. I think it might be better for the one chick one hen doesn't like.

 

[Fancychooklady]

When do you guys let your momma hens and chicks go out in the run with the rest if the chickens? No worry a about the Rooster he loves the chicks. I think it might be better for the one chick one hen doesn't like.

I keep momma locked up with her chicks for the first week. Mine are in an A-frame inside one of the breeding pens. Then I let them have supervised visits in the big coop and if all goes well I'll let them out on the grass with the the rest of their flock, supervised of course. My Roos adore the little ones but the same can't be said of other hens. Supervision and intervention , if required is the key when introducing any new birds to the flock. Just play it by ear.

 

[emvickrey]

I don't always send momma and babies into the flock. I usually send momma back and keep the babies with any others I may have hatched myself.

If momma isn't fond of one of her babies it possibly could be fatal to put it in with the rest of the flock. She may not protect it.

 

[rnchick74]

I'm so excited! I'm going to be looking at some silkie chicks tomorrow evening from a local breeder. Any suggestions on specific things to look for or avoid? Any tips on trying to pick out a female early on?

 

[Fancychooklady]

I'm so excited! I'm going to be looking at some silkie chicks tomorrow evening from a local breeder. Any suggestions on specific things to look for or avoid? Any tips on trying to pick out a female early on? 

Look for nice dark feet, 5 toes and mostly blue beaks. Stay away from any split wing stock. And avoid cross beak. No way of knowing the sex in chicks.

 

[Suzierd]

Thank you both for the advice! The two Mommas love the little blue it the hen that was separate with her two light colored chicks that pecked at the blue baby. It's doing its best to stay away from her and get behind the other hens seems to be going ok that way but I'm a nervous about it and I'm not getting anything done to day I keep running out to the coop and just watching incase she does it again. It will be very cramped for them if I have to separate them. And harder for me to let them out for little breaks and clean.
The little blue one will be a week old on Friday.

 

[Cynthia12]

I'm so excited! I'm going to be looking at some silkie chicks tomorrow evening from a local breeder. Any suggestions on specific things to look for or avoid? Any tips on trying to pick out a female early on?

Make sure the 5 toes are strait out from each other, none tucked under..have had that, and, makes sure there aren't 6 toes! Have had that happen! It would be on that back toe, just a little extra bump. They don't bother the chicken and you can't see it for the feathers once grown out..so if you fall in love with the chick, and you don't breed or show..no problem, just the ones with the tucked under two could bother the chick.

 

[aatx]

Out of my original 7 silkies, 4 have survived - will be 4 weeks old on Wednesday. (Two died soon after getting in my order and one injured its leg and never recovered.) Three of them have been healthy from the start - two whites and a buff, I believe. I noticed that the black one wasn't growing as fast as the others and figured out that it was constipated. So for the past week or two, it's been getting special treatments - warm water run over its bum, assistance with a syringe, scrambled eggs with olive oil, and even one day where she got a few doses of an epsom salt laxative while in isolation. We seem to be mostly passed the constipation stage, but are now in the catch up phase, so I give it boiled egg yolk first, by itself, so it gets plenty, before I share it with the others.

It was a bit funny when I had it in isolation. I had it in a tote in my bathroom and was just using a desk lamp for heat. Plenty warm and plenty light. All was okay if I was in the room, but about 30 seconds after I left, it would go to screaming. I'd come back in, fearing something had gone wrong with its heat or water, and it would just go back cheeping and preening itself like nothing. This repeated several times. It didn't want to be petted or anything, but it wanted me in the room! It was a bit hard to let it cry itself to sleep. I would have put it back in with the others, but I wanted a full 24 hours of poop monitoring while I was actually home with no distractions. (Thankfully we got several normal poops.)

Here's a short video of it getting some boiled egg.

This is a video of all the chicks (17 survived). I gave them grapes for the first time last night and it caused quite the frenzy! It is reassuring to watch it run around though, so right now I feel like we just have a bit of catching up to do, but it is healthy.

 

[rnchick74]

Look for nice dark feet, 5 toes and mostly blue beaks. Stay away from any split wing stock. And avoid cross beak. No way of knowing the sex in chicks.

Look for nice dark feet, 5 toes and mostly blue beaks. Stay away from any split wing stock. And avoid cross beak. No way of knowing the sex in chicks.

Make sure the 5 toes are strait out from each other, none tucked under..have had that, and, makes sure there aren't 6 toes! Have had that happen! It would be on that back toe, just a little extra bump. They don't bother the chicken and you can't see it for the feathers once grown out..so if you fall in love with the chick, and you don't breed or show..no problem, just the ones with the tucked under two could bother the chick.

Thank you both!! This is great info - I will definitely do both. I'm not looking to breed or show, but knowing what I'm looking for in quality is always important.

 

[I<3MyChickens-Jewel&Flash]

I would say to give it some more time. It could just be new pin feathers. One thing though, It looks like maybe it's getting cross beak unless you where just holding it at a weird angle.  I'm talking about the second pic. The beak isn't lining up in the pic

She does have a slight crooked beak. Sadly. Don't plan on having any of her eggs if she is a hen. Or her breeding the hens