Monthly Archives: January 2011

White Silkie Rooster Added to Flock

I purchased a white Silkie hen with some Partridge Silkies recently.  I want more white Silkies so I knew I needed a white Silkie rooster.

I went on Craigslist and this nice lady named Patty was looking for a home for her free white Silkie rooster.  It was just meant to be.  She had only listed her post 15 minutes before I read it.  After talking, she knew I would be a good match for her rooster.

I offered to give her a hen instead of just taking her rooster free.  I could not find a hen I was willing to give up so I just gave her 10 bucks instead.

She had a nice setup.  They had built nice houses for their chickens and a great goat house, too.  I got some good ideas from that visit.  Plus, they gave us a bunch of oranges off their tree.

As I said before, it is great going to other people’s chicken yards and getting ideas for my own building projects.  People are so nice, too and willing to share their experiences and knowledge of chickens.  I shared with Patty about hatching out chicks and offered to lend her one of my incubators.

I brought my white rooster home and put him in with the Silkies and the black rooster jumped him and fought for awhile.  I just couldn’t stand it so I put him in with five small Silkies and added the white Silkie hen to keep him company.  The yards are side-by- side so they can get use to seeing each other and hopefully that will help them adjust.   I hate that peeking order that they go through.  That is one reason why I always try to add more than one chicken at a time.   I also try to sell at least two chickens.   If there are two or more chickens added, it seems to confuse the other chickens and they don’t bother the new ones as much.  They gradually do the peeking order thing but they don’t do it all at one time.

I am hoping that I will be posting some news about white Silkie chicks in the Spring.   I have to keep the white hen with only the white rooster for at least a month to guarantee HIS chicks will be hatched.   This means I will be making more chicken houses and putting up more fences to divide my flock.   I am constantly drawing diagrams.  Oh well, at least I am not at the bingo hall wasting money.  lol  By the way, I am more of a slot machine grandma instead of a bingo grandma.

Chicken Addiction thread on BYC

I was looking at the backyardchicken.com website the other day and saw there was a thread about chicken addiction.  Well, that thrilled me because I was thinking there couldn’t possibly be too many other people like me….crazy about chickens.

I really got a chuckle out of the people saying they were just going to get a couple hens for fresh eggs and now they have xxxx amount of chickens.

So, I am warning you….chickens are addictive.

Update on winter broody hens

Well, as of yesterday, no chicks.  It is so cold outside that maybe the hens bodies weren’t warm enough to hatch the eggs.  I am not giving up yet because the mother hens haven’t either.  I am thinking it may take longer to hatch the eggs if the temp is not high enough.

I read somewhere that the chicks may hatch early if your temp has been a little too high so maybe if it is a little too cold, it will take longer to hatch.  I have actually had some chicks hatch out in the incubator after 23 days instead of 21 so there is still hope.