The Middle Tennessee Thread

[DMRippy]

Quote: It was a good number..... Not sure how many. I didn't know what colors they were or anything so I would toss eggs from each pen in with my other eggs... figured I could tell the silkies no matter the color LOL. So of 12 baskets in the hatcher all but 2 maybe have some silkie egg. Some have 1 some 2 and some 3 eggs.... I don't think I had 4 from any one pen.

You want some more Lavs? I have 12-15 now. You could spot me some silkies when you can spare them.

 

[JacqueOCS]

Then clearly a lot made it to lockdown.   We found that Silkies need a very low hen to roo ratio. And also not having to ship the eggs helps!

One of the Lav Am eggs was clear and two stopped developing around day 7 or so... but I am pleased with 9 getting there! 

So what should the silkie hen to roo ratio be?

 

[DMRippy]

Quote: I would think 1-2 hens per roo. Some breeds are just harder to get fertile eggs from and you just need to have them in trios usually. Example my SLW 3 hens MAX... my BLRW he can cover 6 for some odd reason. Same breed just not the same fertility.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

I have found that doing a littlw trimming up in the nether regions helps fertility on the silkies quite a bit. Trimming the hair out of their eyes helps too. My roos are a lot randier when they can actually see the girls.
This won't work if you plan on showing them, but it definitely helps with the breeders.

 

[FeyRaine]

Good new is I figured out the tricks to my LG bator and my hatch rate has zoomed from zero towards 100%

The bad (for me) news is I have four week old & 6+ (some more pipped atm) day old EE Chicks that I _need_ gone tomorrow (Thurs) as I need to go out of town Fri&Sat & I'm not confident on the farmsitters attention to detail for these young birds. I was going to list them on CL for $2 each, but I'm open to all offers IF you can pick them up tomorrow. I'm 16 miles from Fall Creek Falls State Park.

The Roo on all but 2 of these is a pure Black Amer. , the hens are a green laying EE & a JG (so olive egg daughters likely).

The other 2 are from my colorful EE Roo & hatchery laying hens, 1 looks like from my Del as it is a nearly white chick.

**PM** if interested.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, the dogwoods are blooming here and everything is looking green & fresh finally

 

[DMRippy]

I have found that doing a littlw trimming up in the nether regions helps fertility on the silkies quite a bit. Trimming the hair out of their eyes helps too. My roos are a lot randier when they can actually see the girls.

This won't work if you plan on showing them, but it definitely helps with the breeders.

but good info. Thanks!

I have a question... I don't do silkies... yet. I have 2 partridge silkies, 1 looks like it has reg feathers for the most part.... is that a cull? AND give me a quick genetics lesson. It seems I have seen people running colors together I would not think you should. Can you mix them like you do guinea? From what I have read about guinea there are only 4 sets of color genes working in them... are silkies more like that or like reg chickens and you should stick to colors of the same type together? Like BBS and partridge in separate pens. If you can cross colors other than BBS, what colors?

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Yeah, i never thought when i got my first chickens that one day I would be doing hair cuts on poultry heinies. Sigh.

I am not as hip on all the colors since i only do buffs. With buffs it is now buff to buff. I think in the past there was some breeding of black to buff in an effort to darken the color. That's why it is hard to get a nice clear dark buff with no black in the topknot/tails/ wings.

Emmalynn is more knowledgeable about this stuff than I. I know if you mix lavender with buff you get porcelain. I believe that there are both dominant and recessive white genes, one of which covers everything and the other that hides behind other colors. Again, Lori does whites so she will know more. It's totally possible that I made that last part up. I have an old brain and sometimes stuff gets scrambled up in there.
I tend to want to be a purist with my breeding lines. Color A to color A and Color B to Color B. In my pet pen I tend to be more experimental, which is how I got Elvis the blue sumatra/ buff silkie cross hen. She's a very cool looking chicken with personality traits from both breeds. In my breeding pens though I want to keep it clean and logical. I also want people to know what they are getting when they buy a pullet from me. When you mix colors willy nilly you don't know that they will breed true. I have been mislead about eggs and chickens before and I felt cheated shen they weren't what was promised. So I keep my colors seperate.

We need Lori in this conversation though. She is ever so much smarter about it all. I'm kind of a one trick pony with the buffs.

 

[DMRippy]

Yeah, i never thought when i got my first chickens that one day I would be doing hair cuts on poultry heinies. Sigh.

I am not as hip on all the colors since i only do buffs. With buffs it is now buff to buff. I think in the past there was some breeding of black to buff in an effort to darken the color. That's why it is hard to get a nice clear dark buff with no black in the topknot/tails/ wings.

Emmalynn is more knowledgeable about this stuff than I. I know if you mix lavender with buff you get porcelain. I believe that there are both dominant and recessive white genes, one of which covers everything and the other that hides behind other colors. Again, Lori does whites so she will know more. It's totally possible that I made that last part up. I have an old brain and sometimes stuff gets scrambled up in there.

I tend to want to be a purist with my breeding lines. Color A to color A and Color B to Color B. In my pet pen I tend to be more experimental, which is how I got Elvis the blue sumatra/ buff silkie cross hen. She's a very cool looking chicken with personality traits from both breeds. In my breeding pens though I want to keep it clean and logical. I also want people to know what they are getting when they buy a pullet from me. When you mix colors willy nilly you don't know that they will breed true. I have been mislead about eggs and chickens before and I felt cheated shen they weren't what was promised. So I keep my colors seperate.

We need Lori in this conversation though. She is ever so much smarter about it all. I'm kind of a one trick pony with the buffs.

I think I will keep the pens PURE. I don't really like breeding BBS even. I like my black black. Very hard to find just blacks in a breed anymore. I do have BBS in my Coppers but one day I will have a black pen.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Wow. That was a really long response and I didn't actually answer your questions.
I believe silkie color genes work like other chickens and not guineas.
Normal smooth feathers are a fault. A silkie will be fuzzy except for some of the wing feathers and those will look a little more twisted than normal smooth feathers. I do know that the silkied gene is recessive. A silkie to a non silkie is always smooth feathered. I have found that they all seem to turn out smooth all over with funky little swoopy topknots (thus Elvis).

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Man, I love a good black chicken, especially the roos. They're just so pretty in the sunshine. I had a gorgeous black ameraucana over my EE pen. He was a great roo. It did mean that every female chick and most of the males turned out black though. I had no EE variety at all. . Sadly he died last fall trying to defend his girls against a bobcat. He was a great rooster.