Silkie thread!

Watch the temperament of your LF around the Polish, EE and bantam breeds.  Sometimes there are no incidents but from my research Hamburgs, Campines (Braekel types), BRs, and Sexlinks can get aggressive in their adult stage so just watch them.  I am totally unfamiliar with Dorkings or Naked Necks but since they are very LF maybe keep an eye on them too.  Even gentle LF can be tempted to pick on smaller gentler breeds just because of the power that they CAN due to their larger size.  This is one of the reasons I didn't accept the gentle Coronation Sussex into my yard - the hens get up to 7-lbs and way too large around my 2-lb Silkies - not an equal pecking order fight IMO.  I had a 6-month-old Silkie that would've been clawed to death by a 7-lb Marans if I hadn't caught it just as it started - the Marans was gone the next day!  I don't keep breeds that don't play nice with my Silkies or my Ameraucana who are my non-combative non-assertive breeds.  If you don't want to wait for an incident to happen then separate the Hamburg, Campine, Sexlinks, BRs from the gentler breeds.  As for your Dorkings or Naked Necks I am not at all familiar with them and they may be a non-combative breed but they get large so might do better with the LF.  In very large acreages the gentler breeds can find areas to hang out away from the aggressive types but in a backyard situation like ours we are just too small to mix assertive LF with gentler breeds.  We refuse to add any LF breed weighing more than 5-lb no matter how gentle they are reported to be. So many chickeneers are unaware that a chicken is not just another chicken and temperaments, size, climates, and diets are not always compatible in a mixed flock.  You are now armed with info that is up to you to decide what you wish to do.




3 chicks died and we got 4 more after the big chicks were 1 wk old. The new chicks are an EE, a SLW, a leghorn, and a Maran. The Maran might not have been a good idea. But since the silkies are older so I don't think pipsqueak the cuckoo Maran will be bad girl. Our white silkie is bigger than our blue silkie so is it possible that the white silkie, cottonball, would pick on gabby the blue silkie?
 
I'm not sure what pills you using but it's much easier to add poultry vitamin powder to the drinking water. Injury /peck to the head can cause cerebral hernia but so too can hot weather if your birds have vaulted skulls.


Here's the link, go down the left hand side to ' cerebral hernia ' .
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Thats very interesting. Thank you. I couldn't see the link. I would like to look into that further.
Originally I was treating him for Wry neck with the Polly V drops, Selenium, & Vit E. But with the advise given from Doc Brown, I stopped that and gave 1/2 of a 81mg aspirin 2x a day for about a week. He then told me to up the dose to 3x a day. I only did that for one day. He then said that Predisolone would be of some value to him. So we stopped the aspirin and did 1/4 tablet of that once a day... He has been on that for a week, then I did every other day for 2 treatments, and I then stopped completely 3 days ago.
The summer here has been a roller coaster. Some days its been hot and humid, but mostly its been unseasonably cool and dry. I see the worst symptoms from him when I let them all out into their playpen in the morning to stretch their legs. While running around he gets the wobbles and makes me think he's worse. But then after the initial excitement of the play, he settles down.
 
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Too much hard feathers on her body. Why does hard feathers grow in Silkies? Are they even pure bred? And how to get soft feathered chicks from this pullet? Should I cross it with a soft feathered roo?
 
This is my silkie, his name is chickenpoxs, I'm not sure what coloration he falls under or if he doesn't fall under anything but I love him, he is the coolest looking guy I have!
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Too much hard feathers on her body. Why does hard feathers grow in Silkies? Are they even pure bred? And how to get soft feathered chicks from this pullet? Should I cross it with a soft feathered roo?

She is full silkie. I don't see any ' hard ' feathers. If you are referring to the wing tips, that is normal,it's called osprey down. In the tail it the wider feathers are referred to as ' ribbons ' , all perfectly acceptable in the breed.
 
Quick question. Am looking to do a hatch with my silky but I'm just wondering if she is going to be big enough to sit successfully on the dozen standard size australorp eggs that come in an order or if I should only put a certain lesser amount to increase my chances of success.
 
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Quick question. Am looking to do a hatch with my silky but I'm just wondering if she is going to be big enough to sit successfully on the dozen standard size eggs that come in an order or if I should only put a certain lesser amount to increase my chances of success.

Hi Appps . My silkie recently hatched 8 out of 13 LF eggs . :)
 

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