Silkies won't go broody...

[nchls school]

I don't believe that to be true. I have yet to see a gamefowl hen that wouldn't go broody, if given the right surroundings. If they won't go broody, they have something else in them. None of them will do much this time of year, though.

But I have seen silkies and serama that were not good parents; either with eggs or chicks. I have three hens brooding right now.

 

[Michael OShay]

But I have seen silkies and serama that were not good parents; either with eggs or chicks. I have three hens brooding right now.

Of all the Silkies I've had, all of the hens were good brooders and mothers, but one thing that I've learned over the decades of keeping chickens is that there can always be an exception with any breed.

 

[ameliadanielle]

Yeah. I had originally gotten them because I thought my laying hens wouldn't sit on eggs, but now I know they will. It looks like our silkies are just going to be pets. That's totally ok. I thought I might be doing something wrong. It's nice that we don't have constant broodies. Our laying hens are just for eggs. I thought if we ever wanted to raise some fresh hens and put some roosters in the freezer, we would have the silkies to hatch out a few. If they never go broody we're fine with that. Honestly, my 4 year old thinks the silkie eggs are the best to eat because they are little and cute. All of our other hens lay large brown eggs. I'm still going to pick up a few more silkie hens and maybe some bantam cochins for our silkie rooster so that he has more than 2 hens to look after. He's too jealous to deal with our Wyandotte rooster having all the big ladies, and now that our laying hens have a big rooster, they don't pay any attention to the little silkie guy. Maybe since these hens are obviously not mom material, it'll be better that we don't raise any babies from them to grow our little silkie flock.

 

[nchls school]

Yeah. I had originally gotten them because I thought my laying hens wouldn't sit on eggs, but now I know they will. It looks like our silkies are just going to be pets. That's totally ok. I thought I might be doing something wrong. It's nice that we don't have constant broodies. Our laying hens are just for eggs. I thought if we ever wanted to raise some fresh hens and put some roosters in the freezer, we would have the silkies to hatch out a few. If they never go broody we're fine with that. Honestly, my 4 year old thinks the silkie eggs are the best to eat because they are little and cute. All of our other hens lay large brown eggs. I'm still going to pick up a few more silkie hens and maybe some bantam cochins for our silkie rooster so that he has more than 2 hens to look after. He's too jealous to deal with our Wyandotte rooster having all the big ladies, and now that our laying hens have a big rooster, they don't pay any attention to the little silkie guy. Maybe since these hens are obviously not mom material, it'll be better that we don't raise any babies from them to grow our little silkie flock.

Just when you give up the silkies will probably go broody.

 

[nchls school]

Of all the Silkies I've had, all of the hens were good brooders and mothers, but one thing that I've learned over the decades of keeping chickens is that there can always be an exception with any breed.

I've had only one silkie that was a problem. Very rough on the eggs which either ended up broken or knocked out of the nest. Most hens are careful and gentle with their eggs. This one turned so hard that the eggs went flying in all directions. I tried to let her brood eggs three times and each time resulted in the same fashion. The same hen, when given chicks to foster, was a great mother; very gentle and very attentive.

 

[ameliadanielle]

I have 3 silkie mix babies from the laying hens, because I didn't realize they would go broody, the only rooster around at that time would have been the silkie rooster and a very young game rooster that wasn't part of the flock. My husband had been collecting eggs and didn't tell me for over a week that we had one sitting on the nest. So I let her hatch them out. Out of 8 we have 3 left. She lost 5 when she left the nest and took the babies out in the yard while we weren't home for 4 hours. No idea what happened to them. We have one that looks like a white silkie with normal feathers and dark skin and 5 toes and feathered feet, one that looks like a buff orpington with normal non feathered feet, and one that is a strange chipmunk color with normal non feathered feet. No clue. Since none of the hens nor the rooster are white I have no clue how we ended up with a white baby. They're in the funky teenager stage with their first real feathers halfway coming in. I'm just waiting until I can possibly see what they will look like as adults and crossing my fingers that they're not all roosters. One of the 5 we lost was our absolute favorite at hatch, a very dark grey and silver chipmunk looking chick with dark skin, 5 toes, and feathered feet. My husband had claimed that one for his own, we're still sad about losing that one. I have literally contemplated temporarily relocating our Wyandotte rooster, and letting the silkie rooster have the run of the laying hens again and getting an incubator and hatching out eggs again until we get another one just like it. My luck... I'll never replicate it and we only have so much room for chickens and being mixed breeds it will be hard to rehome them.

 

[ameliadanielle]

We have 3 new hens in quarantine right now. One was even broody when purchased. So I was assured the hens would in fact go broody.

Now one of my original hens is broody and sitting on eggs. Lol. Bless her little heart... our white silkie thinks she is broody. She is still standing over a haphazard small pile of eggs staring at them as if she is broody. Our partridge hen is in fact broody and sitting well on eggs. Which are brown eggs pilfered from my laying hens and two silkie eggs I took from our special standing broody hen and gave to the actual broody. We can easily break our standing broody by simply taking her out of the nest box and sitting her in the grass. It takes her a few more days before she thinks she is going broody again. She is also the one that lays eggs in random places, where ever she happens to be when the mood strikes. We've been attempting to keep her eggs out of the yard, because I'm not sure we want more special chickens just in case her specialness would be inherited. Lol.