My introduction to Silkies came from a neighbor who gave us a couple of birds when she was downsizing her flock. We quickly fell in love with these adorable little birds!

Our partridge hen (Mrs. Tukeinella – aka Tukie) was an amazing mother. She would happily chick-sit batch after batch of babies for us. Within hours of giving her a fresh batch of chicks of any breeding, she would start to cluck and call, and by evening she would have rounded up all the chicks and tucked them under her feathers for the night.

Having a Silkie hen to watch over chicks is awesome. No fussing about whether the chicks are eating and drinking. No worries about keeping them warm enough. Tukie just adopted them and raised them as her own.

She was an incredible asset to the farm. Even when her barred rock chicks grew so big that they would literally lift her off her feet by trying to hide under her wings, Tukie just carried on like a devoted mother. Unfortunately, Tukie passed away just a couple months before we could breed her to a purebred rooster. We have only a mixed-breed son of hers to work with. She will be dearly missed!

Our current purebred Silkies come from Wild Acres Farm. I only got two chicks out of the dozen eggs we ordered because of issues with my incubator. Both birds were paints.

I have a small collection of pure and part-bred Silkies to work with 2020, with colors ranging from pure black, frosted black, golden partridge, silver grey, and a couple that defy description. I will be anxious to see if any have the same mothering skills as our dearest Tukie bird.

Silkies lay eggs that are about half the size of a regular chicken egg and have a very large yoke. So far our hens are pretty consistently laying. Our new birds from 2019 are laying consistently so far this winter.

[Pictures to come]

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