What's wrong with their feathers?

[chick-among-us]

These are a few weeks old...various babies in here but the fluffies stand out.
a total of 9 new silkied ams, not counting a bunch of splits...woot! Oh and two olive eggers splits! That will be kinda neat to mess with !

 

[FridayYet]

Congratulations! They are adorable.

 

[chick-among-us]

Thanks I am excited! I usually get a split and one little fluffy egg a day someone takes a day off every few days or so... Lol

 

[ESofVA]

They look awesome. I would agree in saying they are "pure" Ameraucana as well. Most Silkie traits are dominant: black skin, five toes, crest/vaulted skull, feathering on the legs, and comb type. These birds even have the correct colored legs unless I'm mistaken. And the combs are very neat pea combs. I would say you have a pair as well. You can clearly see two roes of "peas" on the comb of the larger bird on the left. i would assume that there is a third row on the other side, which is characteristic of Ameraucana roosters.

However if they are both splash you will only get splash babies. You will need to get a Blue Ameraucana to get black and blue silkies. A black would only throw blue.

I currently have Silkies x eggs hatching whereas the roo in most cases is a Salmon Faverolles LF. I also have a Dark Cornish roo but he pretty much ignores the Silkies because they just run out between his long legs!!! My Silkie hens that are sitting are buff, black, painted, a blue buff and a blue. I was taking all Silkie eggs and putting them in my incubator but after the hens became broody, I just let then sit and each now has it's own eggs. The black and the blue chicks have black skin and legs and the yellow chicks have yellow skin and legs, Their legs have anywhere from some feathers to heavily feathered. All appear to have muffs and beards. I still have eggs still hatchingin the incubator every day of the same crosses and am excited to see what they look like in a week!

 

[ESofVA]

I have 4 older chicks that are pure Silkie that I purchased. How do you tell if one is lavender instead of blue? They are apx. 2 months old...

 

[chick-among-us]

I have 4 older chicks that are pure Silkie that I purchased. How do you tell if one is lavender instead of blue? They are apx. 2 months old...

Are you talking about SILKIED AMERUACANAS? or Silkies as in bantams? I have a Lav bantam silkie hen,she throws Lav babies all the time...they look almost silver when hatched and fluffed...the blues are duskier and have darker coloring around the head area where the Lavs look like they are almost white or silver...now that is with the little silkies NOT the silked ameruacana. I am trying to get LAv fluffies (what some of us call the silkied AMs) I am a two generations away from that, we figure...I just hatched two black babies which will significantly help our project. I cannot tell you what these look like when hatched out Lav I am sad to say I have never seen it!

but these are not and never have been crossed with bantam silkies...NONE of my silkied birds have ever had any silkie (bantam) traits at all...all mine have pure traits of the regular Ams I DO have LAV ams also non silkied...and several splits.

 

[TREX]

Hi everyone! I tried to post an update last week, but my computer internet connection was messed up. Then I went out of town for a few days. I have heard from three more hatchers and the results were not good:

Lenster - one chick hatched
PhiladelphiaPhlock - zero hatched

HorseFeathersNV - zero hatched

All had some eggs developed, but died. KellyHM is the only one left with hatching eggs now, I wish her the best.

I had one more chick hatch on Friday, five of my eggs were fully developed, but never pipped. I have six eggs due on Wednesday and 17 more in the incubator due in mid-April.

I'm still having people asking for eggs, but I just can't, in good conscience, keep sending out eggs to people that are not successfully hatching. Hopefully once we are able to outcross the chickens with good quality ameraucanas, we will start having better hatch rates, but this will take a while. And patience is not easy!

The two silkie hens from kathyinmo will be meeting Ozzie this week and we'll hopefully be hatching some of those eggs in April. So stay tuned for the silkie experiment results.

I know this is a very old thread and I am no expert ,but don't pure Aracaunas/Amercaunas have a low hatch rate anyway?Thats why the breed is rare in the first place correct? Maybe this is further eveidence that you started with pure specimens who just happened to have a genetic mutation for soft silkie feathers? Just speculating though,like I said I am no expert by any means.

 

[TREX]

Here are the 2 older ones. The " wheaton" colored one is 1 week older and starting to look great. The blue colored one had a good puffy face as a chick and I and hoping it starts to fill back in. The blue has some red/brown coloring on the hackles. They are 8 weeks and 7 weeeks old. I have 3 more that are 2 weeks old. I will get pictures of them later.

Gorgeous!!

 

[TREX]

Is anyone in North florida breeding these? Would love to get my hands on one.

Still trying to get through all the posts...Fascinating stuff.I'm in the 100's now at least,lol! Hopefully all of you have maintained breeding these special babies.I'll continue reading the rest of the posts later when I have time.

 

[LBKS]

Is anyone in North florida breeding these? Would love to get my hands on one.

Still trying to get through all the posts...Fascinating stuff.I'm in the 100's now at least,lol! Hopefully all of you have maintained breeding these special babies.I'll continue reading the rest of the posts later when I have time.

Likewise but for Kansas - this is really interesting! It'll be a long morning reading I guess