Silkie thread!

[howfunkyisurchicken]

You've gotten yourself some really beautiful babies!! I believe cuckoos male and female have red combs. Check for red on that blue one.

Thank you! I'm pretty proud of them

he has no red, he's a nice, even shade of blue (besides the barring). But his comb and wattles are pretty prominent and he's got thats swept back look. I'll keep an eye out for red, but that white cuckoo roo was in her BBS pen, so I don't think any will show. I've seen cuckoo Silkies before, so I was surprised this one had nice dark skin and a darker comb and wattles then I'd seen on the black and white cuckoos. I'd never know there was such a thing as a white cuckoo, and I bought him because he was the only chick she had that looked different from the others. I'll try to get some pictures of him when I get home!

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

Can I get a opinion on this one?

Well, I would switch out the mom for the daughter and watch what offspring she produces. The theory is that if the mom throws nice babies then her daughters should throw even better babies.

 

[SadieSue]

Can I just let y'all know this thread is BAD.....bad, bad, bad! I've read through almost the entire thing now, and decided I just HAD to have Silkies again. So, I picked up 3 SQ Porcelains, a blue and an off colored Silkie to get my fix. That breeder gave me 3 tiny Silkie eggs, of which one tiny black Silkie hatched. Well, that poor tiny black Silkie was all alone, so of course it needed some company! A few days ago I picked up 11 more SQ chicks- 3 more blacks, 5 blues, 2 lavenders and a splash (at least I think its splash, the feller sold it as a pearl?). And, over the course of the last few weeks I've gotten rid of all but 2 of my beloved LF Cochins to make room for more (not to mention I've finally convinced my DH that I NEED another coop for my precious Silkies)! So, thanks fluffy enablers! Now I'm over run with poof headed puffy butts! Hopefully I can share some pictures soon- I'm just dying to show them off to anyone who'll look!!!!

Isn't that the truth? But share away - I love to see other people's photos of their Silkies!

Oh this thread is just full of enablers, isn't it? And chicken math is a real thing. I had ordered 12 Serama eggs, but knowing how tiny those were going to be decided at the last minute to buy 12 Catdance eggs and help "fill" my incubator. 6 beautiful babies hatched, but not the white I'd hoped for so a friend generously offered me 2 of her whites in exchange for one of my blues. Okay, now I'm up to 7.

But wait! There's more! Another friend who also ordered Catdance eggs knew how disappointed I was when it looked like my gorgeous Porcelain looked like it might be a boy so in exchange for my loaning her my incubator, she's offered me the one Porcelain she hatched because she's sticking to BBS. That would put me at 8 Silkies...
Oh, and we can't get just one baby from her hatch that's so much younger than my 8 week olds, so she's going to add a couple of buffs to that one porcelain so by the end of the month I'll be up 10 Silkies! Not bad considering I ONLY GOT THEM TO HELP FILL MY INCUBATOR! But now I love these babies.

And that new "grow out" pen? It's turning into a Silkie pen for my beautiful 10 babies who were an afterthought. Once I can safely determine the boys from the girls, my beautiful sweet boys will have to find a new home, but right now I'm guessing only 3 for sure will be leaving us. And I'm pretty sad about that. Looks like my partridge, my porcelain, and maybe my last blue are boys.

A big thank you to all the enablers here and thank you for all of your opinions, assessments and compliments when we post photos of our pretty babies!
Enjoy those babies Howfunkyisurchicken!

 

[peepblessed]

Oh this thread is just full of enablers, isn't it? And chicken math is a real thing. I had ordered 12 Serama eggs, but knowing how tiny those were going to be decided at the last minute to buy 12 Catdance eggs and help "fill" my incubator. 6 beautiful babies hatched, but not the white I'd hoped for so a friend generously offered me 2 of her whites in exchange for one of my blues. Okay, now I'm up to 7.

But wait! There's more! Another friend who also ordered Catdance eggs knew how disappointed I was when it looked like my gorgeous Porcelain looked like it might be a boy so in exchange for my loaning her my incubator, she's offered me the one Porcelain she hatched because she's sticking to BBS. That would put me at 8 Silkies...
Oh, and we can't get just one baby from her hatch that's so much younger than my 8 week olds, so she's going to add a couple of buffs to that one porcelain so by the end of the month I'll be up 10 Silkies! Not bad considering I ONLY GOT THEM TO HELP FILL MY INCUBATOR! But now I love these babies.

And that new "grow out" pen? It's turning into a Silkie pen for my beautiful 10 babies who were an afterthought. Once I can safely determine the boys from the girls, my beautiful sweet boys will have to find a new home, but right now I'm guessing only 3 for sure will be leaving us. And I'm pretty sad about that. Looks like my partridge, my porcelain, and maybe my last blue are boys.

A big thank you to all the enablers here and thank you for all of your opinions, assessments and compliments when we post photos of our pretty babies!

So sorry you can't keep roos. Hope you are able to find good homes.

 

[TheChicknGarden]

some of our little fluffy butts from our very 1st hatch....
so far 3 showgirls and 5 silkies out of 12 eggs that went into lock down...
originally had 14 but one was cracked and another never developed
and then i had 2 iffys that i kept cause i wasnt sure....
​

 

[SadieSue]

My Catdance eggs are here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My co-worked picked them up from the post office this morning and drove back with the box on the passenger seat with a seat belt on! lol I love Brenda, she's awesome.

I have 2 lavender eggs and one porcelain. I'm soooo excited about those!! I'm keeping all fingers and toes crossed and hoping they'll hatch. There's one black and some whites. Lots of B/S. Is that blue splash??

PA I'm assuming is partridge. I think there was one more I wasn't sure about.... PU? Buff? I'll have to go and double check. I was too busy worrying about getting the eggs under hens that I might have been seeing things. lol


Just out of curiosity and lack of knowledge:
How long does it take for a fertile egg to "go bad"? When will it be too late, even if a hen sits on them or you put the egg in an incubator, a fertile egg won't develop? Hope I'm making sense, can't think of any other way to word this..

I've heard of people taking eggs out of a refrigerator and giving them for a hen to hatch and they hatched. Assuming these were eggs that were picked out of the coop right away and then put in the fridge right after.. Has anyone ever tried this?
I have one hen that can't seem to decide whether she wants to sit on these eggs or not. So far, she's been sitting on nothing. And now all of a sudden, when I have eggs for her, she's going "Hmmmmm" Maybe she's changed her mind? lol She is a hatching machine though once she sits down. She never gets up. I'll give her about 2 hours and then the eggs are going to the white hens that were thrilled to have a dozen eggs!

I feel like a kid in a candy store with these eggs!!

Thank god for this forum. Makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only wacko! lol

I can answer at least part of your post since I also hatched Catdance eggs. Yes, B/S is from the Blue/Splash pen. I got one blue from my blue/splash that hatched. PA is actually how she marks her PAINT eggs. But as Karen told me, the paints don't breed true so you never know what you'll get. From my paints I got a blue and a Partridge! Porcelain I believe was marked with a single P. I didn't get any Buff eggs so I don't know how they're marked.

Congrats - hope you have a fantastic hatch! And no, you're far from being the only wacko - just look around!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

This is Edgar, the blue cuckoo. Its not the best picture, but his head gear is pretty hard to miss! I think he's about 9 or 10 weeks old.

 

[lil mama]

He's very cute! I like the red comb with his blue color.

 

[tilosi]

Your babies will be here soon!

I know!!

I have the last 5 from the shipped eggs going into lockdown today....praying they will all make it--they are alove right now.

?

I think there was a misunderstanding--that answer, I don't believe was meant for you...

As to your question about breeding a buff to a partridge....I believe, from my understanding about genetics--thanks to this thread---the only way you can only count on showable colors is to breed one color to the same color, or breed complementary colors, ie.: blue/black/splash. If colors are randomly being bred together, a random color, or a "mutt" color will likely be the result, meaning you "may" have somewhat of a chance at getting a showable colored chick--but, if this chick were to be bred to it's same color it may throw undesirable in color, like red bleeding through in places.
This is coming from someone who has never had a Silkie, so an expert may have to fix what I just wrote

to correct my answer...and the info in the next quote is very helpful regarding breeding--I copy all these tidbits into a note on my computer and save them, so I don't have to try to find it later.

this entire thread is a big enabler! LOL!! Yeah, there's no telling what quality of birds you will get out of SQ birds. I have SQ and BQ birds and still get an assortment of very nice chicks, but some of them just would never be SQ even though their parents are.

My boys all look like girls at 8 weeks... just warning you! LOL!! Every single one of my chicks out there have beautiful round crests. And I KNOW there have to be boys out there-- there's too many of them for there not to be boys. You can't go on crests alone. And my roosters are often the most laid back and sweet little things. I like my boys the best because of their sweet tempers. My nice rooster started out looking exactly like a girl-- beautiful big round crest. Then the streamers came in around 5 months.... The nicer the quality, the harder it's going to be to judge.


X2!! I started with hatchery quality. Nothing wrong with them. If you do intend on showing, you'll want to get something nicer. But if you just want fluffy happy pets, you're set!
No, BQ doesn't mean they came from SQ birds. You can only tell what kind of quality of bird you have once they have matured and see how closely they come to the SOP. (standard of perfection) Any birds that have less than or more than 5 toes are a DQ (disqualified-- can not breed or show), birds that have smaller than desirable crests are then pet quality, and the list goes on and on. For your bird to be a Breeder Quality (BQ) you will need a pretty darned good bird with very few faults that keep it from being very competitive as a show bird. So you could show a BQ, because there will be minimal faults, BUT-- you won't place as well next to the REALLY nice birds. Chicks hatched from SQ stock will still give you an assortment of pet quality, breeder and possibly some SQ. The SQ are much harder to come by, though different people will call birds SQ when really it's up to a judge and see how well they fare against other birds that have excellent type, etc. If you haven't been to the ASBC site (american silkie bantam club) --do take a look at their birds and you can quickly see the difference between the qualities of birds. If your birds could compete with the really amazing birds that are winning those shows, then you absolutely have a SQ bird... if not, but you have very little faults, then you have a BQ. But you'll have to wait till your birds are much older before you can assess your quality. For example.. I have a bird right now that has such incredible potential to be a BQ or SQ... BUT, I *think* her wings might possibly be split! In which case, it doesn't matter how fantastic looking she is-- I can't breed her. Making her a pet quality bird because that fault is so bad, that to breed her would be very irresponsible of me. But I'm going to wait until she's older and be sure her wings are indeed split before I get rid of her. Anyway, I hope that gives you a better idea of what we're saying when people are talking about qualities.. it's all based off the SOP.

Great Info!!

Can I just let y'all know this thread is BAD.....bad, bad, bad! I've read through almost the entire thing now, and decided I just HAD to have Silkies again. So, I picked up 3 SQ Porcelains, a blue and an off colored Silkie to get my fix. That breeder gave me 3 tiny Silkie eggs, of which one tiny black Silkie hatched. Well, that poor tiny black Silkie was all alone, so of course it needed some company! A few days ago I picked up 11 more SQ chicks- 3 more blacks, 5 blues, 2 lavenders and a splash (at least I think its splash, the feller sold it as a pearl?). And, over the course of the last few weeks I've gotten rid of all but 2 of my beloved LF Cochins to make room for more (not to mention I've finally convinced my DH that I NEED another coop for my precious Silkies)! So, thanks fluffy enablers! Now I'm over run with poof headed puffy butts! Hopefully I can share some pictures soon- I'm just dying to show them off to anyone who'll look!!!!

Sooo true!!

So excited about how my 10wk old girl is looking! Her name is Beauty.

Very appropiate name--so beautiful!

My Catdance eggs are here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! e e e e

Don't know why my multi-quote looks funny......

 

[lil mama]

She has several pens so it likely means white from pen 2A.

That makes sense. Thank you so much