Silkies - They’re simply SPECTACULAR!

[CSolis]

Is the rooster in the third photo kind of like a calico color? I love his coloration!

Indeed he is! A calico splash, and papa to my blue splash and blue babies out of a black hen.

 

[Obsessed With Silkies]

Indeed he is! A calico splash, and papa to my blue splash and blue babies out of a black hen.View attachment 3341725

Was he apart of one of your projects to get this coloration or did you get him from somewhere else? He really is a handsome little guy!

 

[CSolis]

Was he apart of one of your projects to get this coloration or did you get him from somewhere else? He really is a handsome little guy!

He was a 'gift' from a gal that didn't want him. His lady hatched eggs that were not her own as she was sitting on one lonely egg that I pulled and substituted eggs from the other Roo (Partridge) and hens.

Four of those 8 babies came from THIS rooster and his daughter, the moorehead (Puff Meister). She is an F1 (one is his daughter from an EE mix), and the other a cochin mix (out of a red cochin hen).

The cochin mix in with him is Cheyenne. She produced the other 4 of the eight. Her babies are showing more of a silkie tail, while the father/daughter babies are showing hard tail feathers.

This is my first first silkie cross project that produced the babes in the above post.

Just as a side note: The hen that hatched the first 4 eggs is a sister to White Cloud that happened to go broody on two eggs. I give her 4 eggs from project pen to fill out the nest (tee hee) This is Sioux The blue baby in the above photos is hers..Blue patterned feathers.

 

[AngBantamLuv]

What do you think of this 16 week old pullet? View attachment 3341582
I think I'll name her Poodle..

I love her!! Poodle, or Poochie! Because shes so cute!

 

[ForTheLoveOfSilkies]

Mother hen out and about with her 2 week olds.. I seem to be getting mostly off white looking chicks so far.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Our chances of getting rain through the summer were like winning the lottery...but now we can't catch a break! Flooding, nastiness everywhere!
I have a trench dug bout 2' out from the run to help slow the runoff of rain but the ground is saturated! The run, even covered, is gross. I've got pine bark, pine shavings, leaves, wood chips and straw but it is just awful still.
I keep raking it around to try and let it dry out somewhat but I'm sinking in places that have never even been soft much less muddy!
Yall getting all this rain?
What do yall do?

 

[Hinotori]

Our chances of getting rain through the summer were like winning the lottery...but now we can't catch a break! Flooding, nastiness everywhere!
I have a trench dug bout 2' out from the run to help slow the runoff of rain but the ground is saturated! The run, even covered, is gross. I've got pine bark, pine shavings, leaves, wood chips and straw but it is just awful still.
I keep raking it around to try and let it dry out somewhat but I'm sinking in places that have never even been soft much less muddy!
Yall getting all this rain?
What do yall do?

Not here. We are still in water deficit.

I did put the silkie pens in a spot that was above the worst flooding we've had. Granted that isn't much here, but a few years ago the streams massively overflowed and decided to become a large extention of the pond for quite a while. I made note of where it flooded to.

You've covered the most I need to do with soggy ground so not sure. Wood planks in your walk area?

 

[CSolis]

Our chances of getting rain through the summer were like winning the lottery...but now we can't catch a break! Flooding, nastiness everywhere!
I have a trench dug bout 2' out from the run to help slow the runoff of rain but the ground is saturated! The run, even covered, is gross. I've got pine bark, pine shavings, leaves, wood chips and straw but it is just awful still.
I keep raking it around to try and let it dry out somewhat but I'm sinking in places that have never even been soft much less muddy!
Yall getting all this rain?
What do yall do?

I feel for ya! We get days on days of rain after a long spell of dry hot weather. We are now heading into our 'rainy' season. Luckily soil here is a sandy/clay base, but I've piled enough leaves in there to keep the feet out of the mud. Only thing I can think might help is a load of sand. That would take raking up all the bedding from areas and dumping a ton of sand down, moving beddings around to get all areas covered.

 

[Chicks n stuff]

Tootsie is their name, guessing what color they are is the game!

What color is Tootsie ?

I know the sire is a recessive white. Only have the one rooster in this group. I’m 90% sure the sire(the recessive white silkie), is partridge underneath the recessive white,(five of the sire’s 13 offspring are some form of partridge). There are only 3 possible mothers.
Possible mothers are:
1. A blue silkie hen. She is definitely the mother of a blue partridge chick so she is carrying partridge. Making her Genotypically (E/e^b), black carrying partridge.
2. A black showgirl hen(black showgirl’s mother was black patterned gold birchen showgirl and her father was blue silkie).
3. A dark brown,(near black) silkie hen with with a small amount of silver and gold leaks mostly on her neck, but some throughout her body’s plumage as well. I suspect her to be the mother.

Tootsie doesn’t have the black “eyeliner” like a partridge, no black and brown chipmunk stripe either so they’re not partridge.

 

[ForTheLoveOfSilkies]

Our chances of getting rain through the summer were like winning the lottery...but now we can't catch a break! Flooding, nastiness everywhere!
I have a trench dug bout 2' out from the run to help slow the runoff of rain but the ground is saturated! The run, even covered, is gross. I've got pine bark, pine shavings, leaves, wood chips and straw but it is just awful still.
I keep raking it around to try and let it dry out somewhat but I'm sinking in places that have never even been soft much less muddy!
Yall getting all this rain?
What do yall do?

It was bad here in Winter, so muddy!
In my coop it got quite muddy so I use rubber non slip mats with a few inches of dirt and sand combo on top and that worked well to help drainage. In my run I used rubber non slip floor mats but ones with holes in it so water can pass through but the chickens can walk on top so they don't get muddy feet. I try to think in advance and seed the ground in sections so more grass and less mud.
I also have weed mat with gravel on top in half of the enclosed run for my veg garden path and the chickens are completely dry walking on that, no dirt so no mud.