Silkies non too bright....

[Ponypoor]

My three silkie pullets don't have the common sense to come inside during a storm, they hid under my Blue Spruce about 30' from the barn doorway getting soaked. Meanwhile my 7, 10-week old barnyard mix chicklets came running inside to wait out the storm. This is the second time the Silkies have been caught outside in a deluge of rain. I am not sure if they are just more tolerant of the rain - though when they get wet they look like drowned rats, their feathers just look horrible wet! Or are they just no 'smart enough' to come on in. The others don't seem to have any issues getting out of the rain!

Anyone else out there have issues with their Silkies? Yee Gad I have to say they are in some sorry state, they were wallowing in dusty dirt just before the rain, and they are now walking mud piles (did I mention all three are white?) preening themselves in my barn office!!!

 

[sourland]

A silky has never been flock valedictorian.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Have to agree (and I breed them).
Though partly due to vision issues possibly.
Trim around their eyes might make them a little “smarter”.

 

[Ponypoor]

Have to agree (and I breed them).
Though partly due to vision issues possibly.
Trim around their eyes might make them a little “smarter”.

Yep I keep their 'coiffeur' trimmed they run into things otherwise!

I am new to chickens and got the Silkies first - they were quiet and tame. So when my niece dropped a clutch of 7 newly hatched babies on me I figured it would be a piece of cake.

Not so! Those 7 barnyard mix chickens are WILD! They are cunning, savage, little monsters, they are into everything, run like the wind and fly everywhere!

My poor Silkies get left behind all the time, they just don't move that fast and can't fly. Add to this the fact that they get left in the rain storms is worrying. As it is I do not leave any of them outside unattended - the Silkies because they are dumb as stumps, and the barnyard mix-chicks because they are devious savage little beasts who would be in the next township by the time I got home! hahaha

Highly entertaining though!

 

[Amer]

Yeah Silkies are pretty dumb.