When do Silkies...

[SweetLilRachy00]

Start getting their little afro's on their heads? OK, I'm sure there is more of a name for that...but afro's just sounded cute.

Mine are about 5 weeks old now and look the same, only a bit bigger.

Also, when will I be able to tell the difference in sexes with them? One has longer wings and some longer 'feathers' on it. The other one has shorter wings and sit closer to the body.

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

if the "fro" on the head is oval its a girl. If the "fro" on the head is round its a boy. It may be the other way around. Also the boy has a bigger comb then the girls in the middle of the nose

 

[SweetLilRachy00]

So when will the comb start to develope?

I think they are too young to tell though. They don't have any 'fro's yet

LOL

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

I am trying to remember. Mine turned a year old november 7th. I think it was january I saw the comb if I am not mistaken

 

[SweetLilRachy00]

oh ok! Wow, that's a while! My other chickens are 20 weeks old and they have big ones!

When will they get their fro's? I looked at the shape of their heads from the top. They look about the same. I took some pictures, but they look the same to me in them.
Can post if I need to.

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

silkies are a pain to sex. 5 weeks is still pretty young. Maybe at 8 weeks you can post some pics and maybe we might have a good guess

 

[silkiechicken]

So from all my silkies, if they were going to have large crests (the fro), they showed it as chicks with a larger puff. After that, the puffs normally developed as big as they were going to be at 4-5 months old. If they aren't that big at 5 weeks, don't worry too much yet. Unless you have show quality, their crest's wont be huge.

Females have rounder crests and the males start to show crest streamers coming from it at about 4 months old. Combs usually in my birds start at that time too. I can't reliably sex them 100% till about 4-5 months old. Three months is pushing it... it's a big waiting game on them.

Good luck.

Edit: They are truly tough... since I can sex my leghorn chicks nearly 100% by two weeks old! Combs on those grow fast.

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

thanks silkiechicken for correcting me on that. I forgot wich one was oval and which one was round lol.