Silkie thread!

[Adorkable]

Is this rare,one of my solid black Silkies has white toenails the other two don't??

A couple of my dark blues have a white toenail.

 

[Kisune]

So, my rooster has a milky pupil in one eye. There aren't any other injuries on him and he doesn't seem sick. Is he just blind? And is it normal for two silkie roosters to not fight?

 

[Dirge337]

One of my silkie hens is making Sooo much noise lately. And she's LOUD. I'm worried my neighbors might complain. Is there anything I can do? What does she want? She's not crowing. She's making the normal chicken noise and then this other noise.

That isn't her. But around the 22 second mark of the video is the other noise she is constantly making. And very loudly.

 

[workinnanie]

Penny is pretty! I have hens that are louder than that. Was she afraid of the dog maybe? Usually mine are loudest when stressed or laying an egg!

 

[Adorkable]

One of my silkie hens is making Sooo much noise lately. And she's LOUD. I'm worried my neighbors might complain. Is there anything I can do? What does she want? She's not crowing. She's making the normal chicken noise and then this other noise.

That isn't her. But around the 22 second mark of the video is the other noise she is constantly making. And very loudly.

That's the song mine usually make when they need to lay an egg or want to be let out. Not sure if you can do anything about it.

 

[chicken hawk 33]

That,is a broody hen sqauck.

 

[Sylvester017]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to encourage silkies to not brood? because my silkies keep trying to brood and they've lost weight because they won't leave the nest. And it's too late in the year to hatch chicks.

I've noticed two things that cause my Silkies to go broody, or seem like they are brooding.

One thing for sure is that Silkies ARE a broody bunch and there's not much that works to stop them so I let them go through the 3 or 4 week broody period on an empty nest -- but make sure they get taken out a couple times each day to eat/drink/dust-bathe/exercise. We put a broody Silkie on the farthest end of the yard so that she has to run back to the coop nest for exercise but along the way she stops to dust-bathe, eat a little, drink, before running back to her empty nest. I tried breaking broodies and it's absolutely no use and I'm present 24/7 to monitor them but nothing worked for me so I let them brood - I dipped them in cool water, locked them out of the coop, put them in a separate wire cage with no bedding, segregated them alone in-house, etc etc. Since Silkies lay a lot of big eggs I feel it's necessary for them to brood and give their body a rest from laying so many eggs so they can regain some nutrients. I offer extra treats while a hen is in her nestbox and sometimes she shows interest and sometimes not. And yes, they do tend to get a little skinny while brooding - that's why we also give a drop of Poly-Vi-Sol no-iron children's liquid vitamin a couple times a week to a broody hen. Other owners use other chicken vitamin methods but for us the children's vitamin drop works for us because we have only 4 hens and they LUV the taste - gotta be careful to only give one drop because people vitamins are strong.

Another thing I noticed about our Silkies and other chicken breeds also, is that during molt they get very lethargic, have decreased appetite, get reclusive, don't want their body or feathers touched, so many times we find a hen that looks like she's brooding but she's really just wanting to seclude herself during her miserable molt downtime.

 

[silkiecuddles]

@Sylvester017 interesting info.

 

[Banaynaychicken]

My silkie baby peanut butter

So CUTE! might have to steal the food item idea for my first brunch when my dad lets me breed my white and buff this spring ^-^ Might name one Skippy, and Pan, and JIF,XD

 

[Banaynaychicken]

A couple of my dark blues have a white toenail.

My Buff silkie boy has white nails and a white/cream colored beak.