Silkie thread!

[hudsonmama]

I have never had silkies before, but got some locally and am not sure what ages they are. The youngest, a white silkie, is probably about three weeks old. The others are at least a bit older. Any guesses of age and sex? (You may also see my mille fleur d'uccles in the background)

My white silkie, who I think is the youngest, taken today...



Two black silkies, who are hard to photograph, also today...





One buff silkie, today...




And, last but not least, two more silkies...red? or partridge? Anyone wanna say? They are definitely a bit red. The sun makes it seem like it's changing a bit.

These are from today...




This is what these silkies looked like when I first got them...


Can't wait to see them all grown up!

 

[Cynthia12]

At 13 months I'd say a girl

I was wrong on the months part..I got called on that one..I wrote months, meant to write weeks! Silly me..and my brain.

I do like one thing about getting older, I can blame my mistakes on age.

 

[Cynthia12]

Not necessarily. You can get good crests with non-vaulted birds, too

Good to know! I have one that I really like in color. Maybe it will have a nice crest come along.

 

[ThaiChick]

I know this is probably going to sound stupid and has probably been answered somewhere, but I just hatched out my first silkies. All four are from the same breeder. Three had the big topknot on their head and one doesn't. What is the difference?

Thanks.

It sounds like you have three with vaulted skulls and one without. A vaulted skull is s skull that is not completely closed. Similar to the soft spot on human baby. One of my silkie pullets has no vaulted skull and she has a nice fluffy top knot.

 

[Cynthia12]

Check out this excellent article with photos written by Nikki Stetson of Hat Trck Silkies---> http://www.hattricksilkies.net/articles_vaulted_skull.html

Now that was helpful. Thank you for posting it. After reading what Sonoran wrote about the crest, then seeing that the blue in the top picture helped too. That' a pretty nice crest for not having a vault, which I thought was how they got those nice crests~until today. Learn something new everyday. I also knew about the opening in the skull..but yeah, it sounds pretty bad when you read about it, but my blue splash seems just fine with hers.

 

[littlecritters]

Gilda,
I just want to say that you are my inspiration.   Others have inspired me to have beautiful silkies, but you inspired me to have perfect silkies.  
Yours are beautiful.  
I'm working hard on the wings but I have to ask....
What do I do with all the culls???
I'm getting overrun with silkies.
Anne

Anne, we love your chicks! You can always send your culls to us!

 

[theacw]

Hi guys!

I am getting my first silkie hen next week and have a couple questions

-She is 8 weeks old and they said they "have a pretty good idea" on gender at that age.... what do you think?
-What age should I introduce her to my 2 hens, Buff Orp and SLW that are 1 years old?
-Are they going to beat the crap out of her? Its only been those two since day one

 

[ldutch123]

I'm very new to silkies and Boy did I get thrown in head first. I have 7 roosters out of 10 silkies. Soooooo in an effort to not have the 3 hens tortured I wondered.....could I put the 2 tough silkie Roos with my full size free range girls?? Currently there are 40 laying girls a tophat roo and a young EE roo. The girls really don't like him too much.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I have never had silkies before, but got some locally and am not sure what ages they are. The youngest, a white silkie, is probably about three weeks old. The others are at least a bit older. Any guesses of age and sex? (You may also see my mille fleur d'uccles in the background)

My white silkie, who I think is the youngest, taken today...



Two black silkies, who are hard to photograph, also today...





One buff silkie, today...




And, last but not least, two more silkies...red? or partridge? Anyone wanna say? They are definitely a bit red. The sun makes it seem like it's changing a bit.

These are from today...




This is what these silkies looked like when I first got them...


Can't wait to see them all grown up!

I do not see any partridge; I do see buff and slightly darker buff, but not even reds

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Hi guys!

I am getting my first silkie hen next week and have a couple questions

-She is 8 weeks old and they said they "have a pretty good idea" on gender at that age.... what do you think?
-What age should I introduce her to my 2 hens, Buff Orp and SLW that are 1 years old?
-Are they going to beat the crap out of her? Its only been those two since day one

Do they have a DNA test to show gender? and are they claiming decent quality on the bird? Te better the quality, the more difficult gender determination is (with the exceptions of DNA testing and gender variations in colour patterns).

They need to be pretty close in size to introduce to those breeds and NOT get the tar beaten out of them.