Toni....you may know this but all Silkies have blue skin, feet, etc. Yours look like they will be white.

Paul - Yea, I know that they have black skin. Their plumage is a lot darker than my silkies last year and definitely have a bluish tinge to them. One of them had a dirty back, so I had to give him/her a quick bath & her fuzzy feathers were definitely blotchy in color and not solid.

I would just watch the defective chick and see how she does. Some people feed extra vitamins etc, but I think if they are eating, they either get better or they don't. If she does not seem to be suffering, just give her some time.

>> only runs around in circles.

Highly inbred lab mice and chickens are very different, but FWIW ...

We got a batch of young mice once that wouldn't stop running in circles: all of them running clockwise.

They didn't want to use "weird mice" for experiments, so they were all put down. One doc was curious enough to do autopsies - they all had the same inner ear infection.

Rick - That's perfectly reasonable. I know that when I have an inner ear infection I tend to lean more that way, as if that would help the pain!

PPal - She seems to be doing ok, just when she sees that someone/something other than other chickens does her head droop & she starts to run around backwards. She's actually heavier than the other brahma, which is why I didn't want to put her down. I make sure she doesn't have an empty crop and she stays hydrated.

Rick it is not surprising that all the mice were identically afflicted. They are all so carefully inbred, they are essentially the same mouse - great for lab studies!

Fortunately wry neck only shows up occasionally - I've never heard of a group attack.

I just spoke with the place I got the chicks from & put my name in for some Cornish Cross Hybrids. Going to get 4 of them on the 19th. From what I've been researching, they're feathered pigs who will have a VERY short life due to their extreme body growth.. I can't wait!!

>> just when she sees that someone/something other than other chickens does her head droop & she starts to run around backwards.

Hmm? It almost sounds psychological. Perhaps counseling? (wink)

Toni: I love your current avatar (three inquisitive chicks).

>> they're feathered pigs

I was reading the comments on MyBackyardChicken and it sounds like the cornish hybrids are going to be a different sort of chicken. There's a lot of sites & blogs out there that are so against these birds because they're "mutants" and grow so fast. I'll just have to see. But one person described them as feathered pigs (I can allow them access to food for 12 hours a day otherwise they'll eat themselves to death) and try to get them to stand as much as possible rather than sit & eat & eat & eat & eat.

Rick - I'd agree with the counseling for the chicken. I do torment them by holding them in my hands and letting the cats & dogs sniff them. I've found the hard way that, if the cats/dogs don't know what the chickens are & are under Mama's protection, then they're feathered toys to play with & eat. But since Mama's watching & holding, be VERY careful with them, no teeth/claws allowed. My one dog, Waffles, absolutely loves the chickens, licking them & snuggling them as much as they'll let her. However, they don't care too much for it & will peck at her!

Chicks and dogs living together! If only one of them is acting weird, they sound very resiliant.

It's cool to me that some animals will try to mother babies of other species.

Well, it's official, I'm not really liking these brahmas or leghorns. They're NOT friendly birds at all, not compared to the orps. The orps will come up to me and let me do almost anything to them.. I can't pick up any of the brahmas or leghorns without them freaking out. Oh well, I didn't know. I know next time not to get them. I'm thinking about, next year, ordering some white orps & others from that Murray McMurray hatchery as no one locally will carry the white orps.

It's too cold for the chickens to be outside right now. I'm afraid of them freezing to death, so I had to move the brahmas & the leghorns back downstairs with the silkies & put the orps back in their hutch inside the house. The temps yesterday was 71 degs. Today the high was 18 with a windchill of -2. Brutal. Too cold for them. They have a nice coop with lots of straw in it, but I was afraid of them freezing to death, so I brought them inside. They can stay inside until Thursday when it warms back up into the 50s & 60s.

I'm surprised by your Brahmas not being docile, I've had some over the years and they were always very low keyed, and gentle. Leghorns are very high strung, and flighty, but all of the Brahmas I've ever had were nice and tame. I've had both the Light and Dark types and they were the same. Maybe they've learned their behavior from the Leghorns, lol

Tom - I'm thinking the same thing. I read quickly on the McMurray site about the leghorns being friendly, so that's why I went with them. Boy was I mistaken. These are very flighty & high strung! Right now they're at the dinosaur stage. I put the Buffs back outside & the leghorns & brahmas back upstairs. The 3 silkies are also very skittish, so I'm gonna have to work with them. When I was transporting the brahmas & leghorns, the brahmas were not as bad to catch as the leghorns. One of the leghorns had learned how to fly (kinda) and was hopping all over the place. Had to be super careful to catch them carefully so I didn't hurt them. One of the buffs wasn't too keen on me catching her & kept pecking at me, so I swat her back. Never actually hit her, but she didn't like that. I wonder if she was thinking it was some kind of game? Or maybe she was mad 'cuz I didn't have my usual offering of bread for her... I did give her some corn on the cob & they went crazy for that. I found some grass growing in the back yard, so when I tossed the girls outside into their much-larger pen, I gave them lots of grass to munch on & boy did they go crazy for that! They were literally throwing it all over the place.. one of the girls ended up with a huge clump on her back so everyone else was chasing her around trying to get the grass off her!! But she didn't realize that's why they were chasing her.. it was funny as hell!

I'll have to watch them carefully today, tomorrow, & especially on Wednesday 'cuz it's going to get very cold.

I have never heard of anyone thinking leghorns were friendly!

This is where I saw it: http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.co...

I think next year I'm going to order from them. I'd like some white orps & can definitely sell the minimum amount of silkie chicks if I have to.

You will notice McMurray themselves never called the leghorns friendly. Nor, I'm sure, would they ever post the letters about how all the pullets flew over the fence and could never be caught again. In my experience the heavier - usually brown egg layers - are the easiest to manage if not the most productive.

hehehehehe, I noticed that the leghorns are very flighty! Even flying out of the tote I had them in, which I hadn't seen any of the chickens I've had (orps, NHR, or silkies) do. Oh well, lessons learned. I do love my orps.. too bad I don't eat that many eggs otherwise I'd keep them.

Waiting patiently for this upcoming Friday. Picking up the last of the chicks I'll raise for the season. I'm getting the 4 Cornish hybrids & probably pick up some more buff orps. There's going to be another livestock swap this Sunday, so I'll be probably selling my girls that day. I may sell the Leghorns & the Brahmas then too.

My buffs have been living outside now steadily for a week with no problems. I've got a heat lamp on outside because it's dipped down into the teens a few nights now and everything seems to be OK. Probably on Thursday I'll be tossing the other 4 (leghorns & brahmas) out there too. Well, not literally tossing them, but they'll be living outside for a week or two. There's supposed to be another swap happening on 5/4, and if so, I'll be taking them to that.

I picked up my Cornish hybrids. I can't believe how cheap they were. $2 / ea! I had on hold 4, but ended up buying just 1 extra so I have 5. I pull their food away for the night when I got to bed & give them back their food when I get up in the morning, so they're without food for less than 8 hours. That's what I've researched that I should do & what I was told to do by the seller. They've gotten MUCH bigger since I bought them. They're almost the same size as my silkies that I got 3 weeks ago! They peep insistently in the morning for their food.. I guess they're just STARVING to death! I've got them on Purina Chick Grow medicated, but have been reading that I need to take them off of the medicated food at least 2 weeks before I slaughter, so I'll put them on some kind of meat bird food (no idea which one) on May 4th and prepare for making dinner on 5/24.

I'm about ready to strangle some silkies, though. Seriously. I've never had this much problems with them kicking the shavings into their waterer! OMG twice a day I have to literally dig their waterer out from the shavings!!! I've pushed all the shavings over to 1/2 of the tote where the heatlamp is, but they seem to delight in kicking it all back into their waterer! And I'm thinking that I have 3 hens. I bought them straight run on 3/31, so they're almost a month old. They're feathering out nicely.. I need to take my camera downstairs & get some pictures! Right now they're definitely at that dinosaur stage.

Is your Silkie waterer hanging chicken-chest high?

My waterer doesn't have a way to hang, otherwise I would be hanging it. It's this waterer: http://www.backyardchickens.co...