silkies

swizzTwo new silkie bantams hatched the old fashioned way , by their mother, when I got back here this afternoon. Both white and fluffy, more like the cock who is a pure silkie , than the hen , who is a silkie crossed with an Americauna; she is brown in several shades and has normal chicken feathers rather than a silkie's fluff. She lays blue eggs, a dominant trait, so eventually I will have a line of silkie bantams laying blue eggs, which will be convenient in some ways, making it easy to tell which eggs are which when using the silkies as foster mothers for other hens eggs. Many breeders use silkies this way as they are very good at hatching and caring for chicks, often pheasants, geese or other chicken breeds.