Standard Varieties of Chickens:

Silky Fowls

Silky fowls are not extensively bred in this country, but in England are very popular. Their soft, webless feathers when in prime condition, are exceedingly loose and fluffy, standing out from the body in all directions, giving the fowl the appearance of a large bird, which their weight does not justify. The cocks weigh from 2 ½ (1.1 kg) to 4 pounds (1.8 kg), while the weight of the hens is from 2 (0.9 kg) to 2 ½ pounds (1.1 kg).

The birds are of rather square, compact Cochin build; crested, the cock's crest running back horizontally, while the hen's is globular; five-toed; feather legged; rose comb, lumpy in appearance and dark purple in color; earlobes, blue or purple tinged with white; skin, violet, approaching black, the covering of the bones being of the same color; shanks, dark blue or black; plumage, white and downy. Silkies lay a small egg of a pale buff color, and lay 10 to 25 before wanting to sit. They make excellent mothers and are very valuable to hatch and rear the tender little ones of the more delicate varieties.

FOR FURTHER READING...

The following images come from the FeatherSite, "an on-line zoological garden of domestic poultry". The Silkie and Silkie Chicks pages contain further information about this breed's history and more images of these fowl.

Image Credits (from left to right): Courtesy of Barry Koffler; Courtesy of Barry Koffler; Courtesy of Barry Koffler; Courtesy of Linda Brenner

Please note: These links point to pages that are being served off of the cyborganic.net web server, which is not officially part of the Chickscope project. Because of this, the pages may be missing or corrupted, and control of this is generally out of the hands of the Chickscope development team.

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