Silkie thread!

[Fancychooklady]

Ok cool! So the reason I ask is she is gonna get 6 polish and I have two silkies (plus 4 GSL) and the GSL are all hens but obviously the silkies are straight run and soooo she said if she ends up with any roo's she has to get rid of them. Long story short will a polish roo get along with a silkie roo? I know two roo's together isn't something people typically like to do but I really want to help her out. I also know you aren't supposed to have less than 8 hens to 2 roos.... Any advice? What if I also got a hen to go with it so they'd each have three hens?. I know it's slim but I really want it to work.

Introducing a new roo to the flock can be a problem no matter what breed. I've found that the cockerels are more inclined to be accepted when introduced with the momma hen at 8-10 weeks of age. Momma tends to pave the way and the roo isn't likely to be threatened by a youngster.

 

[Lamaremybabies]

Introducing a new roo to the flock can be a problem no matter what breed. I've found that the cockerels are more inclined to be accepted when introduced with the momma hen at 8-10 weeks of age. Momma tends to pave the way and the roo isn't likely to be threatened by a youngster.

Well my chickens are only 3 weeks and she plans on getting them fairly soon so could it work? Also if I don't have to I'd like to not have to get anymore hens because my chicken house is only for 6 chickens and I already have six but I was told because two of my chickens are bantams it will be ok to have a couple over the "limit" So I don't want anymore than eight chickens. can I do that with two roosters? 6 hens and 2 roos?

 

[Kalija74]

"Chickaletta" and her little baby tucked under the wing! Silkies are amazing mommas!!!!

 

[mom of silkies]

I envy your ability to have your wonderful guardian dogs. My friend was looking into Anatolians but she already had 2 dogs (an Aussie Shepherd and a blind/deaf Pom mix) which were worthless as guard dogs but she couldn't part with them. I was looking into Maremmas, Caucasian Sheps, Ovtcharkas, or Pyres, but after we assessed the amount of room we needed for a large dog (unfortunately most guardian breeds are 100+lb) our property would not accommodate it for exercise and I'm too old and arthritic to take a big dog for long walks/running every day. I've had 3 Rotties and a Border Collie over the years and they are great herding or property guarddogs but not the best for flock guardianship. These large breeds are exceptionally intelligent and need a steady job and space for exercising or they get bored or possibly neurotic from the boredom. A friend got a Malinois and also ordered a Sarplaninac but I consider the Mal's more of a police or working/herd breed -- Sarpie I had never heard of before but looks related to the Caucasian Shep/Ovtcharkas. Still, out of all the guardian breeds I think the Pyres would be the best/gentlest around chicks/chickens. I fell in love with an Ovtcharka I puppy-sat and she was an amazing breed with natural guarding instincts without any formal training. She naturally considered the coyote at the back fence an intruder and was on alert but stayed on the property by us until the coyote got bored and wandered off. But she would sit or stand still as a wild rabbit bounced into the yard around her to eat lawn grass and then bounced away and she knew it was not a threat to us and just let it do its thing. My DD's Pitbull on the other hand would've ignored all our commands and gone after the coyote or shredded the rabbit - she shredded a possum despite our commands to "leave it" so I'm not a fan of Pits -- they can be incredibly sweet with their owners but are overly strong-willed and selective about what commands they choose to obey.

I have Anatolians and some are naturals where as others take awhile to learn to not eat the chickens. But they are VERY loving to me and my family, (not so much to anyone else) but they are good with chickens with proper training. The Pyrenees I have is amazing she's good with all the animals and didn't need any training, I got her as a rescue dog and she's one of the best guardian dogs I have! But I love both breeds and have had a few Pyrenees/ Anatolian crosses which were AMAZING dogs!

 

[mom of silkies]

"Chickaletta" and her little baby tucked under the wing! Silkies are amazing mommas!!!!

So precious! Silkies are the best!

 

[Kalija74]

Yes, precious is a great way to describe them!

 

[Sylvester017]

Thank you Sylvester. I'm coming to that conclusion myself. I only have gentle large fowl. I have 7 silkies and 4 LF. plus a few silkie babies in a separate broody pen/box for now with two silkie moms. The silkies outnumber the big girls and I not only raised them together but got rid of several LF the first few months who did not play nice. I'm kind of afraid to introduce something that big. So maybe I'll pass. I don't have too many other options because my husband will not be happy if I ask him to help me build yet another pen/coop.

That's kinda where we were at. We have very little backyard space so separating breeds was not an option for us. In our circumstance we had to find a way for all the breeds to be together so had to re-home the aggressive dual-purpose in order to have more peace in the backyard flock - we re-homed the aggressive Marans and the Leghorns. The Silkies lay amazingly well and being the largest bantam breed they also lay the largest bantam egg. We are not at all disappointed in the amount or size of eggs we get from our Silkies. The only thing is that if we use a lot of Silkie eggs by themselves in a recipe, we might have to add a little bit of egg whites purchased from the store because the Silkie eggs don't have a lot of white in them. The egg whites in a carton from the store have a good refrigerator shelf life so a pint lasts about a month or so when refrigerated.

A blue 2.3-oz Ameraucana egg, a bright white 1.75-oz Breda egg, and a 1.25-oz tinted Silkie egg (bottom of this photo). These are the 3 breeds of chickens we have mixed in our current backyard flock and it has been an amazingly friendly docile mix. We took an experimental chance adding a smaller Breda to the flock for white eggs and have been very pleased with her good nature toward her docile flockmates and she gets many compliments from visitors.


2.25-oz Marans brown egg, 2.3-oz White Leghorn bright white egg, 2.0-oz Buff Leghorn pink egg, and 3 tinted Silkie eggs from 1.5-oz to 1.25-oz.
We miss not having a colorful egg collection but re-homing the Marans and Leghorn breeds was the best thing to do for the sake of the gentle Silkies and timid Ameraucana hen. We're fairly pleased with the size of our Silkie eggs.



It's impossible to get a group shot of our 4 hens together so here are their single photos:

BLUE BREDA, BLACK SILKIE, PARTRIDGE SILKIE, BLUE WHEATEN AMERAUCANA

 

[Sylvester017]

I have Anatolians and some are naturals where as others take awhile to learn to not eat the chickens. But they are VERY loving to me and my family, (not so much to anyone else) but they are good with chickens with proper training. The Pyrenees I have is amazing she's good with all the animals and didn't need any training, I got her as a rescue dog and she's one of the best guardian dogs I have! But I love both breeds and have had a few Pyrenees/ Anatolian crosses which were AMAZING dogs!

Now those sound like an interesting cross-breed. Do you have any past photos of your Pere/Anat mix?

 

[mom of silkies]

Now those sound like an interesting cross-breed.  Do you have any past photos of your Pere/Anat mix?

Yes I will try and post some pictures asap!

 

[AnRamire]

My answer is that you just never know. I personally don't believe in having the LFs outnumber the Silkies in a flock. An owner related a story on BYC where she had a Silkie momma hatch out some LF eggs and a couple years later one of the grown offspring actually attacked and killed it's foster Silkie momma - the adopted LF weren't just raised together but were actually hatched and raised by the foster momma Silkie. Again, it may or may not happen to all who have mixed LF/bantam flocks but I personally will not have my LFs outnumber the Silkies in my mixed group and I don't have any LFs heavier than 5-lbs. Our 2-lb Silkies were getting bullied, pecked, and attacked by a 7-lb Marans so do the math and figure who got the short end of the stick in chicken battles. All the LFs I've chosen to keep with my Silkies are known by reputation to be mostly gentle-natured breeds and 5-lb or under -- so I don't keep the more common dual-purpose breeds since they seem to be higher on the assertive/aggressive scale where smaller crested, bearded, muffed, or feather-legged LFs seem less combative and sweeter around the Silkies. Just my personal experience. About 50% or more of Silkie owners/breeders would suggest on the safe side not to mix Silkies with the assertive dual-purpose LF breeds and I wish I had heeded the advice at the start of owning Silkies.

This is what our 7-lb Marans did to our 2.4-lb Silkie plus chewed off her comb before we realized the Silkie was not molting but being eaten alive - the Marans and Silkie were raised together. If we had not been home to see the Maran also viciously attack a 2nd Silkie pullet, we might've come home to find a dead Silkie. We immediately re-homed the Marans to an egg-seller's flock where she couldn't pick on smaller birds any more and it was then that we began a search for gentler lighterweight LF breeds that were not so prone to pick on docile smaller breeds. So far our search ended with Ameraucana (not EE) and Breda as the two gentlest LFs to mix with Silkies. We no longer allow the LFs to outnumber the Silkies. There will always be pecking orders established in a flock and so far the Silkies as the oldest birds keep the LF in line but still we monitor closely to make sure it stays that way. If Silkies aren't the top of the pecking order then there could be trouble for them from LFs.

Oh dear,,, this makes me very nervous. I currently have 4 BO hens, they just turned a year old. They tend to be passive and docile, except when it comes to treats. I have recently seen one of my girls grab the other by her comb and drag her across my deck

I broke it up because I wasn't sure what would happen. I now have 2 weeks old silkies and am worried the BO will pick on them. Oh dear. I want them to be in the same Coop as there is ample room.