Frizzles & Sizzles

 My paint Sizzle rooster and a bantam white cochin hen. My rooster is the offspring of a Paint Silkie rooster and bantam white cochin hen. I like the way he looks and he is the head honcho of my bantam flock of sizzles.

 He knows he's handsome and struts his stuff proudly.

 This is one of my Paint Silkie hens. She's only a few months old here. Her sire was a Paint Silkie and her mama was a white Silkie I bought from Murray MacMurray hatchery, so I don't know more about her ( mama ) than that she is a white Silkie. I am still reading up and learning about 'paint' genetics but the breeding of the rooster and several white Silkie hens has produced quite a few paints for me and I am happy with them thus far. ( Going to keep the black hen from this crossing to see what she hatched out after being bred to her paint half-brother.)

 Here is one of my white bantam frizzled cochins. She is a good mama and hatched a passel of little paint sizzles. I am having so much fun with these cute chickens !  (MY Sizzles are chickens I get from hatching eggs produced by the breeding of my Silkies with Bantam Frizzled Cochins.)

 Mama frizzle with her chicks.

 Look at this crazy Sizzle. She has a few spots and wacky feathers. Love her !

I am learning a lot raising these chickens . I am set on producing Sizzles with spots ( paint) and Silkie skin coloring, blue / black. I have a few that already fit this description. My next project in the poultry pens will be to evaluate all my Silkies and Sizzles and narrow my flock down to what I want to keep and breed. Always something to do in the poultry pens !

Doves and Frillback Pigeons

 It's been awhile since I've posted about my doves. I have two dove pens and the doves thrive in both.

 I cleaned out all the nest baskets . My doves favor these wire planters . I've changed things up and given them what I thought were better nesting sites, but they always return to and fight over these wire planters. I added my home-made burlap liners and provided a pile of Ponderosa pine needles for the doves to use as nesting material. As I expected, they went right to work making nests and fighting over the baskets. All's well there I guess.

 I am so excited about my new birds ! My husband rolled his eyes when I brought home two Frillback pigeons from a poultry swap last month. I told him not to worry about me bringing home any more birds because I have too many and took chickens and ducks to sell there. How could I have known there'd be these amazing frilly pigeons just calling my name ? I HAD to buy them, so most of my profit from the poultry swap was spent right there at the swap. Go figure. I bet most of my poultry friends would have resisted temptation to buy any more birds. ( wink wink.)

 Just LOOK at those tightly curled feathers !

 I put up a small wood nest box in my dove pen for these beauties and they moved right in.

 The lady who sold me these pigeons successfully shows pigeons,chickens, doves, and other poultry. I know they are not show quality because she keeps her really good birds for showing and breeding and sold these to me at a low price knowing I know they're pet quality. I love them !

To read more about Frillback Pigeons click here .*

Sebastopol Geese Ella & Fella

A quick video of my ( Granny Baa ) Sebastopol geese, Ella & Fella, in our pond.

Paint Sizzles ~ I Hope !

Sizzle chicks are hatching ! Yesterday morning I checked under this frizzled white bantam cochin to discover the first egg of her clutch had hatched. A tiny still wet from the egg chick was under her, and she was very angry with me for disturbing her and the chick.

I am kind of excited about these chicks because they are the chicks from her breeding to my Paint Silkie rooster. The next few days will tell , will I have Paint Sizzles or not ?

Paint Silkies & My Attempt to Breed More

 In November of 2013 I bought 2 Paint Silkies at a poultry show in Chehalis, WA. I had never before seen any chickens with big spots or splotches and I fell in love with this variety of Silkies.. I am sure my paint Silkie roosters are not show quality as they were being sold by someone who was showing their Silkies at this poultry show ( and show people don't sell show quality stock at the price I paid for my rooster ), but I did not care. I wanted spotted Silkies even if they were not show quality. ( I have spotted black & white sheep too .) Above is the rooster who has started my breeding program in search of Paint Silkies . I have 6 white Silkie hens from 2 different mail order hatcheries I bred him to.

 This is a group of 5 chicks from my Paint Silkie and 4 Silkie hens. Of the many eggs my Silkie hens faithfully tended only 5 chicks hatched. 2 are gray, the other 3 are white, and only one chick has spots.

 I am not sure if the gray chicks are splash, or if they are blue, or what ...? I have so much to learn about the colors and genetics of silkies and have been poring over on-line info regarding them.

 The 2 gray - blue chicks.

 One of my white chicks studies me as I study him. ( her ? )

 I opened the wings of one of the gray chicks to show the color and the wing development.

 The only paint chick is on the far right. It has a few spots here and there, and they are definitely spots, not splash or barring.

 These two silkie chicks were incubated and tended by a pair of Porcelain d'Uccles . ( Shh, they don't know they're another breed of chicken so don't mention it to them . ) These chicks are also from my Paint Silkie and white Silkie hens. From the chicks' budding combs I believe the chick on the left is a male and the other a female.

 These chicks look like baby dinosaurs, don't they ?

 

 They have very dark blue skin. Look at their feet.

 I turned the chicks upside down to photograph the skin color underneath their wings too. The chicks were not happy with me and very happy to be re-united with their parents and siblings ,

 a family of Porcelain & Self-Blue d'Uccles * ( click on asterisk to see previous post about the d'Uccles ). Again I'd like to stress to you that these chicks are unaware they are not related through breeding to the d'Uccles , so don't mention it to them ! Their mama is very attentive to them and their siblings and their papa is very protective.

From my Paint Silkie rooster and 6 Silkie hens I have had 9 chicks successfully hatch and only one chick is a Paint. I have a few bantam hens sitting on newly laid eggs from my Paint Silkie rooster pairings, so am hopeful for even more paints. I will be breeding these chicks back to their father and / or each other and will keep good records of them. I am going to be banding all the chicks according to generation of breeding and eventually be even more specific and particular in the pairings. But for now I am hoping for more Paint Silkies.

If you have any suggestions or info that would help please comment ! Thank-you ~ by Granny Baa

 

I posted my question about the color, breeding, etc. of Paint Silkies on a Facebook page and received some very interesting info, comment, and advice. I am going to paste the responses here as an update. I am very thankful to all the people willing to share their knowledge with me and I hope sharing this with you helps all of us raising poultry ! ~ " question!! I have various shades of grey, platinum? and blues trying the same thing lol

20 hrs · Like

Donna Rippy I just looked really quickly but are you crossing the paint cockerel with WHITE? That will NEVER work. Paints are really white chickens with one copy of Dominate white and the spots are leakage. Paints should be breed to BLACKS and other Paints. The other colors you are seeing are probably from you whites. White can hide lots of colors and my guess is she is either blue are splash under that white.

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Donna Rippy BTW Most White Silkies are recessive white.... that is why the pattern will not work with whites.

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Dian Gardner Donna is correct, breed Paints with Black or other Paints only. Otherwise you will end up with all sorts of odd colors, and a genetic mess. Don't breed to the grey (lavender) or the blues either - unless you are trying to produce blue paints. You wi...See More

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Andrew Ari Darmawi is paint actually dom white? I thought it was another gene...

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Jennifer Shaughnessy Misty Svedberg do you know?

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Dian Gardner Paint is an alilee of dominant white and it behaves like it. However.. there is possibly evidence that a bird that doesn't look like Paint may actually produce Paint babies.. as not all Paints look white/black.

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JimandKathy Burnson Thank-you Donna Rippy , Dian Gardner. Since my Silkie hens are from mail order hatcheries i don't know their parentage and had no idea about all you told me here. I do know when I bred my Paint Silkie rooster to a white frizzled cochin ( bantam ) i go...See More

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Marans Cross Chicks~ And What's in A Name ?

 Dark chocolate colored eggs amidst light brown and mint green chicken eggs. Love my Marans !

 

This little chick is the result of a breeding between my Black Copper Marans rooster and an Americana hen. 

 Both of these chicks are my Marans & Americana cross eggs hatched out in an incubator by my grandchildren. These chicks are definitely hardy, thrifty, and survivors .

 The  granddaughter in charge of incubator monitoring and follow-up care of the chicks named them Albert Cheepers McNugget featherweight Esquire the First & Prudence. 

 With names like that I dare not slack on caring for them !

 Albert & Prudence. ( Hope one really is a rooster and the other a hen. )

What's in a name ? Well, when your grandchildren hatch out eggs from your own chickens, then name the successfully hatched chicks, the pressure is on to make sure the chicks survive and thrive. So, Albert and Prudence , let's do well !

New d'Uccle Chicks ! ( With a couple of Silkies thrown in. )

 This week we had some more chicks hatch out from the Porcelain hen and Self Blue rooster. Here she is in the food bowl with the chicks under her.

 Here is the chicks father who is a Self Blue Mottled d'Uccle.

 Above is the nest box that the hen hatched the chicks in, which was made using a board and a milk crate. I have found the d'Uccles tend to spend most of  their time off the ground if given the chance, and it seems also that they prefer to nest off the ground. Most of my d'Uccles won't lay eggs or go broody if the nest box is on the ground, so keeping the nest box about two feet off the ground has worked well.

 Here are the seven new chicks, two of which are silkies . The other five are purebred d'Uccles, one of which is a Self Blue Mottled. The fact that this pairing produced both Porcelains and Self Blue Mottleds is still puzzling to me but is probably because of the mix of Porcelain, Mille Fleur and Black Mottled genetics involved. ( To read about the parents' breeding click here * )

 This is the Self Blue Mottled chick from this batch, and the second one out of this pairing.

 Above is the Porcelain hen with all the chicks.

 And here is the rooster and hen guarding the chicks. By Bugs.