Silkie thread!

[peepblessed]

Ok guys...I am about to separate some of my silkies by color into breeding pens...I am going to concentrate on buff, splash and paint
My question is...how long do I wait to collect eggs to hatch to make sure they are pure colors from each pen
Because at the moment they are all in together and the boys have been having fun with everyone if you know what I mean....I have checked the eggs and they are all fertile at the moment but I do not what mixed (color) silkies....

I use the eggs everyday until they are no longer fertile. It was only a few days for me. ;-)

 

[peepblessed]

I use the eggs everyday until they are no longer fertile. It was only a few days for me. ;-)

In my case I was putting a laying bred hen in with some broodies and didn't want them hatching her eggs so I waited until they were inferitile but it sounds like I'm hearing that one infertile egg doesn't mean all infertile eggs.

The broodies were sharing LF eggs so it wasn't a real test!

 

[peepblessed]

I would like to know about everyones experience in adding to your silkie flock. Or putting different age chicks together. How are Silkies at that? Are they as mean as other breeds? Is there a serious pecking order?
I have 4 week olds and am hatching some, due anyday now. At what point do you think it would be ok to put them in the same x-large brooder, then into the coop.
I have a seperate brooder right now, but my end goal is to wait on putting them into the coop I have until all of them can go outside.
Any ideas?

I usually wait till the small ones are two weeks. You have a big gap. I like to turn the light out in the brooder at night as soon as possible or the chicks can grow too fast (eat day and night) and their wings develop really fast and cause loose wing and angel wing. That is quite a wide gap. All my babies go into the big grow out pen at 5 to 6 wks depending on the weather. I use pine branches to make a large, low cave that only the little chicks can comfortably go under and put food and water under there for them. They are smart and stay there and if they come out a big chick will chase them back. Sometime I take finger nail clippers and clip the little point off the bigger chicks (about 1/16") just to be safe. Those vaulted skulls can't tollerate much impact. They have all usually integrated in less than a week and are sleeping together.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Well, I have been told that newer sperm tends to be stronger and thus override sperm that has been there for quite awhile. My suggestion would be to separate all the boys from the girls, after whatever number of weeks you want to try, do the fertility test (looking for several days in a row of INFERTILE eggs), then put the proper boy in the pen with that/those girls.

This is exactly what I do! I take away the cockerels. They go in my wire stacking pens. The girls are always out. THEN, I start collecting eggs to eat, and as soon as they are all infertile, then I add in a rooster. My rooster must not be super fertile, because after like 3-4 days, they are all infertile. But then I usually give it another week of eating eggs before I throw in a boy. I always wonder how the heck people have roosters that last longer than that! That is incredible, since none of my boys do. But I'm only breeding Silkies, and I have had a lot of fertility issues anyway, and have done a LOT of AI to get my babies!

I would like to know about everyones experience in adding to your silkie flock. Or putting different age chicks together. How are Silkies at that? Are they as mean as other breeds? Is there a serious pecking order?
I have 4 week olds and am hatching some, due anyday now. At what point do you think it would be ok to put them in the same x-large brooder, then into the coop.
I have a seperate brooder right now, but my end goal is to wait on putting them into the coop I have until all of them can go outside.
Any ideas?

When my babies were 6 weeks, I put them in with the adults and they were ignored for the most part. I tried to put in 4 week old babies, and the older ones tried to put them in their place and they are just too small for that, so I didn't try that again. I think 6 weeks is probably good, but there are no other LF birds-- ONLY silkies in there.

 

[littlecritters]

I wonder if there is a more natural or organic approach to killing lices and mites? When I did a googled search, I found that Carbaryl is pretty potent ---> "Carbaryl is a cholinesterase inhibitor and is toxic to humans. It is classified as a likely human carcinogen by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)"

 

[KMHunter]

Quote: I didn't know about the issues with them growing too fast. If I have them inside at night I should probably be able to turn it out around now or in a week or so, right? I also can put them in a brooder and seperate them by wire so they can see each other. I know it's a wide gap, so I was just wondering about what the average temperment is. I have successfully integrated my LF over a couple of months or so with wire seperation in the run. But they are older and the younger ones have to be of age to eat layer feed be almost as big as the hens and not sound like chicks anymore. I am hoping that I can just get all of them to the coop at the same time in the end.
Thanks for the input. I will play it by ear, see how things go. If I have to figure something else out I will.

 

[Hawkeye95]

I wonder if there is a more natural or organic approach to killing lices and mites? When I did a googled search, I found that Carbaryl is pretty potent ---> "Carbaryl is a cholinesterase inhibitor and is toxic to humans. It is classified as a likely human carcinogen by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)"

Not in the quantities that it is in Sevin. It is only 5%, and the rest is talcum powder. This powder was actually first designed FOR the poultry industry. There is not going to be any other way to get rid of mites or lice without just picking them up yourself. I had to rescue baby birds last week when the nest came down. I put the nest back, but when I was examining the birds, they had their eyes closed and no feathers-- they were being eating alive with mites. Thousands of them were crawling over their little pink bodies and making it look like their bodies were twitching with mites, it was disgusting. The next thing I knew, I had mites by the hundreds crawling up my hands and onto my arms. I ran to the house and grabbed the Sevin dust. I poured it into my hand and lightly sprinkled the babies and the nest (and rubbed my arms with it) and a few minutes later-- no more mites, the babies are fine and alive and probably feel better than they ever did before. You are going to come up against a lot of controversy with using any kind of chemical on yourself or an animal. I have always been a naturalist, and I am SERIOUS about it. I cloth diapered my babies, nursed them for a year each, delayed vaccines, and use natural methods for anything that I can. We eat naturally, and you will not find store bought cookies or chips in my home, and I stay informed. However... there comes a time you must use your common sense as well. And when you see an animal dying of mites and you can fix it in a matter of a couple of minutes with little to no risk to the animal.. and with no known side effects... I prefer not to see anyone suffer.

"The EPA's own data from their Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) shows just how safe Carbaryl (Sevin) really is. In order for Carbaryl to even affect a human, 5.48 mg/day. It has a moderate to low mammalian toxicity. It is not considered to be an oncegen (tending to cause tumors). It is a weak mutagen (tending to cause mutations) and available data indicates that it has only low teratogenic potential (causes extreme malformations or monstrosities). Carbaryl is not expected to contaminate groundwater. While it is extremely toxic to aquatic invertebrates and honeybees, it has only low toxicity to birds. An important aspect of Carbaryl is how quickly it breaks down and is redered harmless. Its insecticidal properties are lost after 3-10 days. Most animals, including humans, readily break down carbaryl and rapidly excrete 75% of it in 24 hours. Data suggests that there is low to very low toxicity to birds.1"
---https://purplemartin.org/forumarchives/archive/sevinpro.htm

This is only one website-- if you continue to google it, (both sides) you will start to have a better idea to make up your own mind.

 

[KMHunter]

Quote: My Silkies will have a coop of their own. I don't even want to try to put them in with my big girls! Talk about stress for me! I just want to integrate my almost 4 week olds eventually with my Silkie chicks that are about to hatch.

 

[Kikiriki]

Wow! Excellent post, hawkeye! Thanks for sharing your research!

 

[jhfamily5]

Have any of you come across a Silkie chick with hard feathering like this before? This is one of my 2 week old Blue Silkie chicks. Is there a chance they could come in right later?