Silkies week by week pictures

Smileybans · Mar 31, 2021

I am aware of @PioneerChicks thread but wanted to share mine as well. I thought I would also share body pictures. Since I’ll be taking them for my references. I started taking pictures the day they hatched so I’ll start with those.

Snuggle is a showgirl. Splash or all white. Also the only one with a name because one of my sons named him.

Splash 1

Splash 2

Splash 3

Frizzle grey

Black Showgirl

Black silkie

Smileybans · Mar 31, 2021

One week old

Snuggle

Splash 1

Splash 2

Splash 3

Frizzle grey

Black showgirl

Black silkie

Smileybans · Mar 31, 2021

Two weeks old

Snuggle

Splash 1

Splash 2

Splash 3

Frizzle grey

Black showgirl

Black silkie

LynnaePB · Apr 1, 2021

Smileybans said:
I was not aware. And wondered why some of them were feathering out weird! This explains so much. I got their eggs from a local farmer so I think she might not have known. Or the silkies she breeds has the genes in them but look like silkies... is that possible? I can always ask her though.

I thought splash and paint were the same and interchangeable. My mistake. Silkies, and keeping chickens, are new to me and I have no idea about breed standards. But I welcome all information.

Ah glad I didn't bombard you with useless information then! :lol:

Here is some more information. I wouldn't blame you for skipping it though as it's kind of a lot for someone new to chickens!

It looks like your little showgirl Snuggles and the frizzled grey both have silkied feathers and would be considered silkies.

The rest all look like they have non silkied feathers so would be considered satins (yours all look like smooth satins).

Both silkies and satins can come in the frizzled variety. It's harder to tell with frizzled silkies though as they often just look a bit more fuzzy/frizzy than non frizzled silkies. I'm pretty sure your little grey frizzle is indeed getting frizzled silkie feathers.

It's likely that the breeder just didn't know regarding the satin vs silkie thing or doesn't consider them different breeds. Things surrounding satins have changed a lot and it can be hard to keep track of at times. At first those working on satins as a project breed did try to get them recognized as a type of silkie but that didn't work out (that was back when they were called sizzles rather than satins). Now they consider them an entirely different breed but still breed to the same standard other than the non silkied feathers. Satins still aren't a recognized breed though and are considered a project breed.

The regular non silkie feathering is dominant so even if a silkie has satin ancestors it'll never produce a satin when paired with another silkie (barring some weird genetic anomaly). Since silkie feathering is recessive you can breed two satins together and still get a silkie if they both carry a copy of the recessive silkie feathering gene though.

This dynamic makes satin/silkie pens a lot of fun since you can get such a variety of feather types.

Paint and splash are definitely similar but different genetically. Splash is made with blue genetics (two copies of blue makes splash) and paint is made with dominant white over black. Generally paint has a more white background with black spots while splash has a very light blue/gray background with varying shades of blue streaks/spots.

Visual examples always help me more though so maybe these will be useful.

Paint silkie chick

Paint silkie

Splash silkie chick

Splash silkie

Sutherlandfarms · Apr 1, 2021

This is an awesome thread! Thanks to everyone for posting I was really confused about the splash/paint situation

Smileybans · Apr 6, 2021

Three weeks old
Sorry for the bad photos this week. My helpers, my sons, were so confused as to what was going on and it added to the chicks stress. I didn’t want to stress the babies more by retaking them.

Snuggle