Silkies - They’re simply SPECTACULAR!

[LynnaePB]

thank you. he died. RIP

Oh no, I'm so sorry he didn't make it.

This is a bit of a read, but with my past and how Silkies helped me, I wanted to tell it in full.
Warning you now, though, this does get a touch dark, being in a bad mental headspace! If reading stuff like that bothers you, DO NOT READ THIS!

TLDR: Quill buys bantams, winds up with one silkie, later buys silkie eggs on a whim, eggs hatch and the babies help pull her out of a dark mental place.



I'll admit, I was one of those people that didn't take to them at the start. When I was first getting into chickens and wanting to raise them, I thought they were a bit off-putting. My simple mind at that point was seeing fur, not feathers, and that pushed me away. Three years ago, I decided to try my hand at bantams, wanting to see if they would do well where I lived since we had a lot of brush they could hide under better for free range (it's three acres of woods where I am).

We had just finished setting up the eventual adult coop when chick days rolled around at our local tractor supply and so I talked my dad into getting four bantams. At the time, I was thinking of cochins, liking the look of the feather-footed birds and learning how they made decent pets generally. There was one feather-footed baby in the masses, and I made sure to get it as part of the four minimum. I had my mind set in it being a cochin, convinced that the fuzz would give way to feathers in time.

That little fuzzy baby was Hiero, and he was about to prove me and my assumptions wrong in every way possible.

While they were still young, I was making sure I was handling them at least once a day, wanting them to get at least a little used to being picked up. Two of them took to it right away, actively trying to jump in my hand whenever I'd put it down. One of them was a bit indifferent to it. And then there was Hiero, who wanted nothing to do with being handled. If I could keep him on my hand for more than two seconds, I was lucky. As he got older and I noticed that his fuzz wasn't really going away like it was with the others, I figured out that what I had was a silkie. Back then, I wasn't the most thrilled about it, but I decided to make the most of it and see what I could observe with the one I had.

From an early age, he seemed to play the role of peacekeeper, making sure everyone got along to some degree, as well as watching over the smallest (he wasn't massively tiny, more that he was just growing slower while the other two were shooting up like weeds) of the four bantams. Maybe this was why he didn't like being picked up as a baby, because the other two bigger bantams would pick on the smaller one, and he wanted to make sure they left the littlest one alone. After seeing that there seemed to be two different flocks, I set up another brooder container and moved Hiero and the smaller baby, Nero, to it to keep the peace.

When everyone got big enough and it was warm enough at night, I moved them out into the coops we had set up for them where I intended them to spend the next few days before setting them loose so that they knew this was where they needed to go at night. After that, I wasn't able to handle them as much, and they didn't seem to want it anyways as they always bolted when I opened the doors to let them out. Then we were gifted a goose and a few ducks. After breaking apart a couple fights, I had to come to the conclusion that the bantams would be locked up once more for their own safety.

While no one was exactly happy with it (to this day, the goose still tries to go after the bantams. I still catch him every so often pressing up against the wire, trying to get in) it had to be done. This didn't exactly make Hiero feel any better, as every time I went to close him up for the night, he would come over and bite my hand. One night, when he was being stubborn and not going into the coop, I picked him up, intending to put him in manually, only to be shocked when he didn't struggle in my grip like he had as a baby. A bit confused, I put him in for the night, received my nightly nip once I set him down, and locked him in. The next day, I went out a bit earlier, wanting to see if he would let me hold him again. Sure enough, I picked him up, sat on the ground, and simply held him on my lap for a good ten minutes before it was time to put him in for the night. So began our new nightly routine for the next year, and if work had me miss one of our cuddle sessions, he made sure to let me know how mad he was with a double bite rather than a single nip like he did before.

Seeing this new softer side to Hiero started to change my outlook on silkies. After getting a new incubator, I made the decision to see about hatching some silkies of my own. Finding some that was selling 6+ eggs for $25, I grabbed my card and bought them, only to spend the next few days panicking when I saw the weather report that it was going to be in the upper 20's the next few nights. Sure, it wasn't that far to Jacksonville, but the eggs would still wind up being in a massively cold building for at least one night. Thankfully the eggs came safe and sound, and, after a very long 21 days of getting up every four hours to turn the eggs by hand (as well as making sure mom or dad turned them at the exact hour I had laid out for the turning schedule while I was at work) we had eight little fluffballs out of nine eggs to hatch.

Before these eggs hatched, work was getting to me, far more than it probably should have. I didn't feel like I could trust my co-workers to get things done, especially when it came to closing duties. When we got backed up on register, no one would come to help, no matter how many times I called, and the managers insisting I needed to call for backup whenever that happened, despite them not showing up to actually help. Dealing with that for a year on end was hurting my mental state. I would go out on my lunch break and sit in my car, crying my eyes out in a slight form of stress release. It got to the point where I actually had to go to the doctors and they prescribed me antidepressants and had me do therapy sessions to try and talk out what was going on in my head. When the therapy councilor sounded and acted like she didn't want to deal with you, that's not exactly the best impression. The medication worked, but also made me feel so sick the mere thought of food had me feeling nauseous. Once that ran out, I never refilled it, because the only way I would be able to was to go back to one of the therapy sessions.

I was over the moon when the eggs hatched. Two of them didn't make it, though I had braced myself for that after how weak they had been with needing help out of the egg. With these six surviving babies, I was determined to see what I could get color and pattern wise. These were Due-ran, Roe-roe, Rixxy, Cloud, Quinta, and Sylvan. Cloud and Sylvan were named by my two closest friends after they sat with me and listen to me go on and on the whole time about how excited I was to get these eggs to hatch day. These six became my entire world. Yes, I had my other birds: the chickens, the ducks, the goose, but those six gave my life a new meaning. I wasn't just a mama bird that took the others under my wings. To them, I really was the mama bird in every sense of the word. To this day, they are my Silkie Babies as a collective whole.

Hiero wasn't done surprising me, however. When everyone was old enough to spend some supervised time outside, I brought them out and let them run around near Hiero's pen, wanting to see if I could start familiarizing the silkies so that when I built the larger pen, I could put most of them together and just trade out roosters every so often. After about a week of this, I decided to see what would happen if I let Hiero wander around outside with the babies, figuring that as long as I kept an eye on him, everything would be fine and I could grab him if he so much as pecked at one of them. What I got was far from what I expected. Hiero was acting like it was his job to keep threats away from those babies, and that included my hand. I'd go to nudge one of the wandering babies back with the rest of their siblings, only for Hiero to dash over and grab my hand in a very firm bite. He made sure I knew that while he was out, he was the one in charge of watching the babies. Every egg I've hatched since then, I've had the baby with Hiero at some point in time. He's looked after his own babies, the standard chickens' babies, even young ducklings at this point.

It started with one, now they've basically become my reason to still be alive today. Without Hiero and the Silkie Babies, I'm not sure my mental state would allow me to be here to tell this story. Sorry for the long read, hopefully it was coherent enough to make some semblance of sense.

What a touching story, thank you for sharing! I'm so glad they helped you so much through such a hard time!

Yall Mango has finally noticed Milli ...he "misses" every now and then even with Vanilli but her bottom doesn't look like this! Milli looks awful! There are NO signs of mites or lice. I have noticed their dust bathing area is moist...between Mango "missing" and her dust bathing could it have done this to her bottom end?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

edited to reflect NO mites or lice!
it is actually BELOW hee vent in that normalnormally fluffy area that hangs down.

Hmm could it be vent gleet? That is basically a yeast infection and they can seep out liquid from the vent caused by it. If you clean it up and it keeps getting crusty/wet it might be that. I've never had a boy mating leave so much mess behind. I think human Monistat suppositories are supposed to be fairly effective against it (though vent gleet can be pretty persistent sometimes). I had a little girl that got sour crop once (also a yeast infection but in the crop instead) and fed her a portion of the suppositories daily and it cleared the sour crop up really well. With vent gleet you may need to put a suppository in the vent and give her some orally too for a week or so. The Monistat cream has an ingredient that isn't good for chickens but I checked the suppository ingredients and they do not contain it so should be safe. I'd look up more on treating it in case I'm wrong though.

Three babies have hatched so far, including the one that was malpositioned. This one needed a little help to get out but was able to unzip and push out the rest of the way herself. So far two paint and one blue!
Photo of them in the dryer with their stuffed animal buddy.
I’ll post better photos later when they’re all fluffed up and cuter!View attachment 2973242

They are adorable!! Congratulations on the ones who've hatched so far, I hope the remaining viable babies all make it out without any issues too!

I am looking at getting a silkie this spring. Can they live in very cold weather. And i like the blue splashed silkie.

I'd be worried about weather that gets very cold for silkies though I have heard they can do well in cold weather as long as they stay dry and the coop is draft free. I think they can fair alright if it gets into the negatives by a degree or two if they are in a very dry and draft free coop but if it commonly gets below 0 I'd probably only get a silkie if you can house it someplace warmer in the winter. The splash ones are really pretty.

I live in Tennessee now but grew up in central Oregon where it did occasionally dip below 0. I had a little black silkie hen in a mixed flock that did fine with those temperatures. I think we provided some extra heat on extra cold nights though.

Babies babies everywhere this morning! Today is hatch day! All 5 have already hatched! Yay! All are crosses. I had 2 white eggs (Blue Andalusians), 2 green eggs (Starlight Green or Ameraucana, not sure), and 1 blue egg (Easter Egger, Ameraucana, CCLB, or Prairie Bluebell, not sure). As I mentioned before, all the potential daddies carry at least one blue egg gene.

Can't wait for them to fully dry and fluff out but the babies from the white eggs appear black or silver. The babies from the green eggs are a pretty rust brown mix. And the baby from the blue egg appears mostly black with some lighter colors mixed in.

View attachment 2973350

Congratulations on the new babies, they are so cute!!!

Having a big variety in a flock and hatching mixed breeds sounds like so much fun! All that variety and getting to be surprised how they turn out sounds exciting!

I said I would post pics of my silkie chicks when they hatch. They are expected to come into the world on Friday!!! Today they have officially gone in lockdown!

I can't wait to see what you hatch! I hope the hatch goes really well too!!!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

If you clean it up and it keeps getting crusty/wet it might be that. I've never had a boy mating leave so much mess behind.

It being so crazy cold here I just cut it all out - it has been completely dry...just matted like mud. Vanilli doesn't have but like one little spot where he misses all the time but he just started with Milli so I'm guessing he's going get it right eventually?
She seems perfectly fine otherwise and no discharge of any kind and no skin irritation so surely its him.

 

[LynnaePB]

It being so crazy cold here I just cut it all out - it has been completely dry...just matted like mud. Vanilli doesn't have but like one little spot where he misses all the time but he just started with Milli so I'm guessing he's going get it right eventually?
She seems perfectly fine otherwise and no discharge of any kind and no skin irritation so surely its him.

Oh that is good it doesn't sound too much like vent gleet then. Hopefully he does figure it out better eventually!

With vent gleet it's not always wet. Sometimes it's dry with an accumulation of crusty white stuff. Sounds like this isn't really what you are dealing with right now though which is good because it can be a real pain to get rid of sometimes!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Oh that is good it doesn't sound too much like vent gleet then. Hopefully he does figure it out better eventually!

With vent gleet it's not always wet. Sometimes it's dry with an accumulation of crusty white stuff. Sounds like this isn't really what you are dealing with right now though which is good because it can be a real pain to get rid of sometimes!

I hope that's not it either...nothing on her white n crusty so I'm guessing it's lil man lol!

 

[Chickeria]

I said I would post pics of my silkie chicks when they hatch. They are expected to come into the world on Friday!!! Today they have officially gone in lockdown!

Fingers crossed that everything goes well
I'm looking forward to the pictures

 

[LadiesAndJane]

OK so eight chicks have hatched so far! There is one that has not even internally pipped yet but it is shadowing at the bottom of the egg so appears to be some life in there. Maybe just a late developer. Will leave it in the incubator to see what happens.
Here are some photos of the ones that have hatched.
One blue, three black, four paint. Two of the paints look white except there is a random black feather here and there.

 

[HipMystic]

OK so eight chicks have hatched so far! There is one that has not even internally pipped yet but it is shadowing at the bottom of the egg so appears to be some life in there. Maybe just a late developer. Will leave it in the incubator to see what happens.
Here are some photos of the ones that have hatched.
One blue, three black, four paint. Two of the paints look white except there is a random black feather here and there.View attachment 2973864View attachment 2973865View attachment 2973868View attachment 2973867View attachment 2973869

Aww! They’re so cute!

 

[AngBantamLuv]

OK so eight chicks have hatched so far! There is one that has not even internally pipped yet but it is shadowing at the bottom of the egg so appears to be some life in there. Maybe just a late developer. Will leave it in the incubator to see what happens.
Here are some photos of the ones that have hatched.
One blue, three black, four paint. Two of the paints look white except there is a random black feather here and there.View attachment 2973864View attachment 2973865View attachment 2973868View attachment 2973867View attachment 2973869

Adorable!! Do you think its possible the little blue one is a paint, with just minimal dominant white? Wondering about the white chin and spot on its chest they're all so cute!!!

 

[LynnaePB]

OK so eight chicks have hatched so far! There is one that has not even internally pipped yet but it is shadowing at the bottom of the egg so appears to be some life in there. Maybe just a late developer. Will leave it in the incubator to see what happens.
Here are some photos of the ones that have hatched.
One blue, three black, four paint. Two of the paints look white except there is a random black feather here and there.View attachment 2973864View attachment 2973865View attachment 2973868View attachment 2973867View attachment 2973869

Oh they are so beautiful!!! Those spots on the two with more spots look great! I wonder how the other two little paints will spot up? I hope that last little one does well despite being a little late!

No vaults this round or did any have small ones? From the pictures I can't see any accept maybe on one of the blacks (and looking at it closer probably not even on that one). I'd love to hatch less vaults like that, I hope I'll get there eventually.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Oh they are so beautiful!!! Those spots on the two with more spots look great! I wonder how the other two little paints will spot up? I hope that last little one does well despite being a little late!

No vaults this round or did any have small ones? From the pictures I can't see any accept maybe on one of the blacks (and looking at it closer probably not even on that one). I'd love to hatch less vaults like that, I hope I'll get there eventually.

Thanks!
Only one has a vault out of this batch, one of the paints not pictured. She is still in the dryer. I had a customer actually ask for a paint with a vault, so I will let her have this one.
Seems to be random if I get vaults or not. This go round, 4 different hens are the mommas, two with vaults, two without.