They’re the teddy bear cuddlers of the chicken world.
Silkies are one of the most unique chicken breeds in the world.
Short, squatty, with fuzzy, fur-like feathers, the birds stand out amongst their fowl friends.
Silkies are an ancient breed, considered to have begun in China during the Han Dynasty, in 200 B.C.
Marco Polo mentioned a “furry chicken” breed as he recounted his travels through Asia in the 1400s, and the breed was officially recognized in North America in 1874.
Most Silkies in North America are bantams, growing to between eight and 14 inches tall and weighing around four pounds.
They sport a “muff” of ear feathers and a beard, purplish-black combs and wattles, and feathers growing all the way down their legs.
They have a tuft of feathers on the tops of their heads that can grow long and curl around their faces.
The birds are unique in other ways, too.
They are one of the few chicken species that has the polydactyly gene, which means each foot has five toes, instead of the usual four, and their feathers do not have barbicels, the small hooks that latch the individual hairs of a feather together. That’s what causes the birds to look so fluffy – the hairs grow loosely and have the appearance of individual feathers instead of a dense blanketing of feathers.
A chicken cuddle puddle
Becky Mercer, Gibbon, Neb., got her start raising Silkies 30 years ago. But when an animal intruder broke into the barn and killed them all in one night, she gave up.
“I said, that’s it. I’m never having chickens again. It’s too traumatic and I can’t handle it,” she said.
But when her daughter, Samantha, was 10 and saw pictures of the Silkies her mother used to raise, she wanted some.
“She begged and begged and bothered me for over a year,” Becky said. “So her dad (Scott) and I said, for her 12th birthday, let’s order Silkies.”
Samantha fell in love with them, and showed them at her county fair. After a year of showing, the family went from raising production Silkies to standard birds. Samantha has shown at the Nebraska State Fair.
They have wonderful dispositions, Mercer said. They’re usually not aggressive and love to be picked up.
“They’re wonderful first chickens to have for kids,” she said. “They like to be picked up. They’ll sit on your lap and purr. They make a funny purring sound when they’re happy.”
She likens them to the Star Trek’s Tribbles.
“They’re like a fuzzy blob. And they don’t perch. They just pile on each other on the floor and we call it a cuddle puddle,” she said.
Good mothers – and fathers
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Silky hens are good mothers, too, often used to hatch eggs of other species.
Mercer recalls a Silky hen she nicknamed Big Mama.
“She loved nothing more than to sit on eggs, hatch them and raise babies,” she said.
The Mercers had peacocks, who aren’t good parents, so they would take the peacock eggs and put them under Big Mama when they were about to hatch.
After they hatched and were growing, Big Mama continued to mother them.
“She’d look at them like, ‘hmm, you look kind of strange but I’ll love you anyway,” Mercer said. “They’d try to crawl under her even when they were as big as she was, and she’d let them.”
The Silky roosters are sometimes as good of parents as the hens. Mercer has had males sit on eggs.
“The females get very angry because the males won’t get off” the nest, she said. “Males will help raise the babies. They will run along with the mother,” and protect the chicks from predators.
Silkies are known to be broody more often than other chicken species, so they aren’t a good choice for egg production. And their skin, meat and bones are black, with a richer, gamier flavor than the meat of other chicken breeds. In Asia, Silkie meat is considered a delicacy.
Can’t quit at just one
Because of their fluffy feathers, they are more susceptible to cold and moisture and need shelter from rain and snow. Mercer keeps hers indoors, in a building with heating and air conditioning and temperatures between 75-80 degrees. If they get wet in the winter, she’ll bring them in the house and dry them off.
“They can get too cold and get hypothermia,” she said.
Because of their unique appearance, at one time they were popular exhibits in circuses and carnival freak shows, and early Dutch breeders told people that Silkies were a cross between rabbits and chickens.
They come in a variety of colors, with the most popular being cuckoo (variegated dark brown or black with white); paint (white with black spots), gray, splash, white, partridge, black and blue.
Mercer loves them for their personalities.
“Some are more outgoing and some are more snuggly than others. Some come up and sit at your feet, squawking at you and demanding you pick them up.”
She has between 35-40 adult silkies and hatches out about 300 chicks a year, keeping some for showing and selling the rest.
“They’re way more inexpensive than horses or cattle or sheep, to show, and easier to handle,” she said.
A person can’t quit at one, she said.
“They’re addictive,” she laughed. “Just ask my husband.”
“They’re just fluffy and sweet.”
More information can be found through the American Silkie Bantam Club (www.americansilkiebantamclub.org.)
Freelance writer Ruth Nicolaus loves (nearly) everything about the Great Plains, but mostly its people. She lives in eastern Nebraska. Reach her at editorial@midwestmessenger.com.