Here is one of the baby silkies is it a boy or girl?NEED HELP CATSCAN
This message was edited Dec 1, 2009 2:47 PM
SAVED! I got an EGG!
Another one
There are five of them but its hard to get there pictures my camara is old and it has to focus by then they have moc=ved and I have to start over again.
I think this one is a rooster by his top what do you think?There father is black and the mom is that brown color
I think this is a differant one.
I only got 1 egg today. The weather was nicer than the last couple of days. Must be the pullets.
Hey green04735! I tried to answer yesterday from work, but it disappeared....evil mega-corporation.
I agree with the roo diagnosis...and see how upright he stands? Yes, I think that is a roo.
Is is almost as though the girls walk around tipped forward.
The second, third and fifth also look like pullets--I am not as sure about the first. It is probably a pullet, but the angle of the shot makes it harder to tell.
Anyone else have an ideas on them? It is really hard to tell from a single picture (see I am making excuses already).
This message was edited Dec 2, 2009 3:41 PM
Judging by their "do's" I would guess the black headed ones are pullets and the red head is a rooster.
My sexing skills, while highly disputed by Catscan, who clearly thinks she is the all-glorious-queen-of-gender-determination, have worked well with my own silkies. (So pbbbtttttt on Catscan!) (she knows I'm just razzin' her)
I find that they are notoriously difficult to sex, and base MOST of my opinion on combs and wattles. My current silkies all have nubbly walnutty combs on the roos, and nothing on the females. Also the roos have small wattles, and the females do not. Of course, this has been shown to not always be reliable, since somebody on here has a roo with no comb.
There are a lot of pictures of silkie combs on here:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGP/Silkies/BRKSilkies.html
Mine have varying shades of dark red/mulberry through to almost black.
So, based on that info, I can't really tell from some of the pictures, but what I would say is that I would almost guarantee that #3 is a roo. To me, there is definite swelling at the base of the beak, and since you have said they are about 3 months old, I would say that it's the beginnings of a walnut comb. I contrast that appearance with #2, which has nothing of that colour or nature developing at the beak base area. #4 is a little fuzzy in the picture around his (?) beak but I think I see the same development happening there as on #3.
I'd show u a pick of my roo with no comb.. but he became dinner for the raccoons before i could get a picture of him. :( he was a black bantam silkie from teh feed store. very tiny, smaller than the one i have now. His name was Lilly Bug bc the lil girl i babysat was convinced HE was a She... even tho he crowed like crazy & never gave an egg. he was 3 when he died. I wasn't very good at taking pics back then like i do now.
It is sad when someone of Moxon's high status and years of chicken sexing experience feels so threatened that she needs to defame a colleague (razz back!:0).
Actually, so far the "do" has been the most reliable trait for me....where IS Silkiechick?
I do see what you mean by the "swelling" Moxie--but I have had Silkie pullets with distinct, though much less prominent, combs--I thought my dear Riley was a roo for some time for that reason. I wonder if the comb development is strain dependent?
I do know that there are "off-type" Silkies with single combs. I've heard it was introduced into the gene pool when they tried to introduce new colours. Not that you could show them--although there is someone who is trying to breed a single comb, white skinned Silkie--HERESY!
A very hearty congrats, jylgaskin! I know what it is like the wait, and wait, and wait! Checking every nook and cranny trying to see if they're laying someplace other than the nesting boxes. They stood in a group, laughing at me! Yes, pointing and laughing.
But see how the egg turns now...haha! Here in NE Texas I have nine Brahmas (just started laying a couple of weeks ago) laying between two to five eggs a day. Its omelets for super tonight! Woohoo!
Thanks so much guys,I took 42 pictures that day,they are not very friendly and I had to keep throwing them sunflower seeds to get them that close,a lot of the pictures were blurry.I never even noticed the bump on the nose untill you pointed it out.
Ah yes, Moxie's "years" (LOL, less than one) of chicken sexing experience....LOL.....
Today, however, I am very sure of the sex of the two chickens I got. I had a panicked message from the lady who runs Chicken Run Rescue in Minneapolis, about a lady here in my area who had 2 chickens that she could not keep, which had been dumped at the garden center where she works. Of course, I said i would take them.
I got there and we talked for a while about chickens and then she got this look on her face and said "Wait....do you have a blog?" and turns out she has been one of my long time blog readers and she was just all excited when we figured it out, and so pleased to know thats where her chickens were going. Small world.
Anyway, one is a hen, and I need to post a pic of her soon so you can all help me figure out her breed, but the rooster is....omg...he is HUGE. He is clearly a broiler. He's about 30 lbs. Poor thing can barely walk and is wheezy because of the pressure on his lungs. These commercial breeds are awful....awful I tell you. It upsets me so. He probably won't live for very long, but I will do my best for him. Huge though....just immense. Poor thing.
What is a cuckoo silkie?
A Silkie with sort of smudgy barred markings--like a cuckoo Marans which is similar to a barred Rock.
You can see one part way down this site:
http://www.promisedlandfarm.net/chickens.htm
Can those chickens see?
I had a Silkie that I thought was so stupid she couldn't even find the food in front of her--then I realized that she really couldn't see through her top knot. I looked it up and it is perfectly normal to have to trim up the pullets so they can see. She not only had feathers coming down over her eyes, she had little tufts coming up from under her eyes. Poor girl.
That's awful. Like having to tack up the eyelids on a sharpei.
Are the cuckoo`s rare?I had never seen one untill now.I reallly liike the looks of them.What colors would you bread to come up with that.?
hi all
we finely got the chicken in there
new hen house
it got 4 differed place for chicken
we are using 3
the 4 one got a sick goat in it
elle
That's great, elle. Must be nice to have a place to nurse the goat... what's wrong with it?
Gald they are home. What's up with the goat. I'm a goat lady too and I'd like to know all about your goat.
green04735--I think they cross a Silkie with a barred breed, like a Plymouth Rock, and then do back crosses to get back to the Silkie type.
I picked up 4 eggs today. Only 2 yesterday so one of today's may be a holdover from yesterday but I was up there just before dark last evening and it wasn't there then. So maybe a new girl has joined the ranks of laying hen! I sure hope so.
I'm still on the 2-4 eggs a day path. If they keep producing like that DH and I will be more that happy.
What types of hens did you say you had, CajuninKy? I think I asked you before and I seem to have forgotten. Sorry if I'm being redundant.
I am still on O ;-(
hi all
with my old hen and new one i get 11 a day
we move the young one
into their new hen house
elle
You are so lucky Elle! I am still getting none!
I'm not getting any either. Oh wait, I don't have any ducks yet....silly me. ;oD
I have ducks, useless ducks - my Muscoveys all seem to be males. Very sociable, but they aren't interested in learning to fly or really swim. Wading and flapping is as far as they will go.
Everyone is getting GOOSE EGGS!
LMAO!!!
Ahhhhh, she's clever, our Catscan....very clever with words! Tee hee!
It doesn't matter if you get eggs or not. Life never goes back to normal.
Sure it does, "normal" just changes.
hi all
me and my dh
say we not normal
that way you are save
it cold this morning
we are going to check all the animal
elle
I got 3 eggs yesterday but no game egg. The weather is ugly today. It quit raining last night sometime but it's cold and the wind is howling. I hate to get out in it with the TMJ giving me fits but it can't be helped. Thank the Lord the migraine that was killing me yesterday is gone today. I aksed God to kill me or cure me. :)
hi
well all the animal are ok
got 4 egg
but my dh said we won0t tommor
too cold
elle