Sloth’s Silkies

[Slothinc]

I'm so glad I found your silkie thread! Thanks for sharing your story, it is so awesome you have your original coop!

I really hope you can get your Lavender silkie dreams fulfilled, it seems we are all having some struggles getting the colors we want! Debbie has been trying so hard to get buff and I think only has hatched 1 or 2? I wanted chocolate so ordered eggs in and had 1 chocolate from the 3 eggs ugh!

The low hatch % sure makes those shipped eggies expensive! I've heard about the Lavender being fragile, I wonder why?

Thanks @2ndTink !

I don’t know for sure, but the lavender gene is linked to shredded feathers in regular feathered birds (usually it’s just the tail feathers looking ragged) so maybe adding that gene in with silkies who already have shredded feathers creates extra fragility? That’s the only thing I can think might affect them. It’s weird, everyone who owns lavender says they are way more fragile than regular silkies.

 

[Farmgirl283420]

I have been inspired by others on here like @Debbie292d to make a single post talking about my chicken adventures! I’ll warn you this first post is long, but more just for my own records, and I’ll keep track of my hatches and birds here for journaling purposes!

My story started a few years ago when I built a coop from scratch, while simultaneously incubating shipped silkie eggs and a few locals. But then we had to relocate and I left my coop and chooks with some friends. They took great care of them and I came back to some of my original chickens (and a few that had hatched after I left.) We lived a few hours away from where we were originally so enlisting the help of a CRANE, we extracted my homemade coop and run and relocated it to our new place!

So here I find myself a chicken mama once more and I couldn’t be more thrilled! Silkies hold my heart, I love almost everything about them. They’re small size, fluffy feathers, crests, beards, fluffy feet, shape, style, colors, black skin, waddling, and sweet nature… I love everything about them! Seriously it’s like the breed was created for me!!

My favorite colors are paint and lavender but I have never been able to get my hands on lavender. I currently have 6 hens. Three paint silkies, two black silkies with leakage, and one black copper marans who I’m not especially fond of lol!

My dream is to work on a line of colored-egg laying silkies, breeding towards silkie SOP. I can’t really have roos where I live but I’m going to see what I can do haha. I think it will be a very slow process.

I got myself an incubator and have started hatching already!

The first batch hatched on Leap Day (2/29). They are from a breeder in Iowa who ships eggs more securely and carefully than anyone else I have ever seen, and her pricing is very reasonable. Her name is Brenda Smith and she is on FB. I had a couple of shipped batches from her a few years ago and one of my remaining paint hens was hatched from her eggs! I have 9 black and/or black mottled silkie babies from her eggs. I haven’t ever had a mottled silkie before (not a fan of the light beaks and wattles and combs on mottled and cuckoo) but it seems like breeders are getting more of the black pigment now. These babies are all pretty dark! So I can’t wait to see how they turn out. I put them in my outside brooder yesterday (1.5 weeks old) with a heat pad cave and they are doing really well!

The next batches of eggs are in the incubator now and they are a batch of show silkies from Bobbi Porto (I have always wanted her eggs!!) she is so so sweet and amazing. Out of 19 eggs, only 6 are developing. They really got jostled in the mail! But I am really crossing my fingers that some may hatch - there are 5 blue cream (very excited about this color) and one lemon cuckoo.

The other batch in the incubator are 4 eggs from someone on this forum kind enough to send me some of their silkied EE eggs - beautiful blue silkie sized eggs, and they already have a lot of the silkie traits! They will be white. I am excited to get some blue egg layers from them!

Okay then I did a bad thing, and ordered more eggs to fill all the empty places in my incubator… so now I get the joy of doing a staggered hatch in my one incubator. I think these eggs will be my last hatches for awhile!

The first batch is 7 eggs from Akers farms, she has two frizzled satin silkie hens who lay a blue egg and she was kind enough to send me eggs only from them. One egg looks very small, so I don’t think it will fare well, and the others are kind of on the big size (larger than my silkies eggs) but I’m super excited to see what they look like!

And last but certainly not least, I ordered my dream eggs, for which I have zero expectations for, as they are lavender eggs and lavender silkies have a very very hard time hatching (and living in general haha) so we will see, but I’m not trying to keep my hopes up. They are from Geri Godina who comes very highly recommended. They arrive tomorrow. I believe she sent 7-8 eggs. So excited to try! (A few years ago I got lavender hatching eggs but they were mangled in the mail and not one ever even started to develop. Hoping for a better outcome this time!)

Anyways, that was basically a novel of an introduction!! Sorry about it and be ready for all my chicken adventures to be posted here.

The girls and their set up, and the mottled chicks a few days after hatching.

I’m looking forward to see what happens! I really hope your Lavender eggs hatch! The chicks are adorable!

 

[Slothinc]

I cringe to even figure out how much these birds I DID get cost me to try get buffs.

4 dozen eggs of mixed buff/cuckoo/paint/mottled, and wanting ZERO naked necks, I wound up with 18 birds. 1 frizzle buff and 1 NN buff (if these are both females, that's fine.) The rest are cuckoos and mottled with one paint being a NN and there's a NN cuckoo.

I'm happy though, with the exception of the NNs, to have gotten what I have. I never would have these beautiful birds had I not tried for buffs. Someday, I may try again.

@Debbie292d I have found the same with my hatch percentages being way way lower so far this year on shipped eggs, compared to 4 years ago when I incubated all summer.

Ugh I’m so sorry about your quest for buffs that hasn’t been too successful yet! Bobbi Porto has gorgeous buffs - last I saw she was hatching the buffs for herself but I would totally recommend her if you decide to try and hatch out more buffs. She is the nicest lady ever!!!! And you can tell her you don’t want NN!

 

[Slothinc]

Can't you buy lavender silkies chicks? I personally never trust hatching eggs to much can and does go wrong. I use to have buff silkies now i just have blacks and chocolates

I had thought this as well, but I think it’s nearly impossible to get shipped lavender chicks from any of the good breeders…. And I came across a hatchery website that ships lavender silkie chicks… guess what the price is? I almost choked when I saw it! $300 per chick, straight run. I literally have never seen chicks that cost that much. And especially not from a hatchery. It is insane, imo. Also their pics look like they have had a purplish tint added. Very weird. But yeah, they are just very rare and extremely hard to get ahold of.

 

[Debbie292d]

Can't you buy lavender silkies chicks? I personally never trust hatching eggs to much can and does go wrong. I use to have buff silkies now i just have blacks and chocolates

At least for here in Wisconsin, I can't trust USPS to ship me chicks. I would have the feed mill try get what I want first and buy from there, but they have a bad reputation of chicks/turkeys dying once brought home, so that's not an option either. The only breeder within an hour of me is the main source of the beautiful breeders I have right now, but she doesn't have buffs. Since buffs can only breed with buffs to make buffs, I'm not so sure I should want those as much anymore but a year ago when this quest started, so many people around here wanted them.

 

[Slothinc]

I’m looking forward to see what happens! I really hope your Lavender eggs hatch! The chicks are adorable!

Thank you so much!!

 

[Debbie292d]

@Debbie292d I have found the same with my hatch percentages being way way lower so far this year on shipped eggs, compared to 4 years ago when I incubated all summer.

Ugh I’m so sorry about your quest for buffs that hasn’t been too successful yet! Bobbi Porto has gorgeous buffs - last I saw she was hatching the buffs for herself but I would totally recommend her if you decide to try and hatch out more buffs. She is the nicest lady ever!!!! And you can tell her you don’t want NN!

Thank you. I found her site at https://indigoegg.us/ and bookmarked it. I'll think about it some more. I leave the country the third week of April so I have to be mindful of what's out in the pens, brooders, and incubators when I'm gone for a week so maybe when I'm back I'll think about that.

 

[Slothinc]

Thank you. I found her site at https://indigoegg.us/ and bookmarked it. I'll think about it some more. I leave the country the third week of April so I have to be mindful of what's out in the pens, brooders, and incubators when I'm gone for a week so maybe when I'm back I'll think about that.

Oops I just looked at her page and she does have NN in both her buff pens at the moment But she does change them around fairly often, maybe by the time you’re ready for more eggs she won’t be hatching them for herself and maybe will have a pen without NN. My eggs from Bobbi are set to hatch in just a couple of days! I’ll update and let you all know how the hatch goes.

 

[Slothinc]

As an update, I put 8 eggs in lockdown last night! 5 are Bobbi Porto’s (4 blue cream and 1 lem cuckoo!) and I have 3 silkied Easter egger eggs! They are due to hatch on the 21st. I am doing a huge no-no and having a staggered hatch in a single incubator. So I have other eggs still incubating while I hatch these babies. I am really crossing my fingers that it works out. I have the hatching eggs upright in cardboard egg carton cups, and the ones not hatching are in the turners still. I do not have them on auto turn though because they are shipped eggs with fragile air sacs - but I am turning them with a button on the outside of the machine so that I don’t have to open the incubator. I will have to vigilant about watching for the hatching babies and taking them out pretty quick because they won’t have much room when they hatch.

My blue eggs from Akers farms, I was worried about them because they had the wonky shaped (but still attached) airsacs - and they are ALL 7 developing strong right now! I’m shocked!! So pleased!

The lavender silkies that all have detached airsacs I did a quick candle on and it looks like 2 possible blood rings and nothing in the other eggs (but it was still very early for them.) I am getting more eggs from the breeder this week in hopes that they survive the rough handling of usps a little better.

I also placed one more order - I think my last order of shipped eggs this year (hopefully!) and it is for bantam self blue ameraucanas! Thank you so much to @2ndTink for the recommendation of Norsk Farms! I am super excited to have another banty breed in addition to my silkies. I just have a soft spot for the bantams. And with lavender being my fave chicken color, it was a no brainer! Things will be very crowded in my incubator, depending on how many of the lav silkie eggs quit/don’t develop.

I’m excited to see what happens!!

 

[2ndTink]

I'm so excited for you! Lockdown day AND new bantam eggies on the way