New Silkies – Page 80

How To Improve Fertility in Silkie Chickens at VJP Poultry

March 28, 2017December 1, 2018 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

20161116_135510 It is very easy to tell if your eggs are fertile. Crack one open in a dish and look for the round, white dot known as the blastodisc. It should have the appearance of a bulls-eye if it is fertile. If it is not fertile, it will look clear in the center and indistinct in its outline.

Roosters must be sexually mature in order to fertilize an egg. This is usually achieved at five to six months of age. Roosters will begin to crow before they are fertile. Roosters fertilize by mounting the hen and depositing semen. The hen stores the semen until an egg begins to form. The egg is fertilized before the shell develops. In normal circumstances, the failure rate is around 15% for eggs being successfully fertilized.

The length of the day will have an effect on fertility. Roosters become more active in their mating as they are exposed to more daylight. Hens will also begin to lay more eggs as the days get longer. Warmer temperatures also will have an effect on how interested your rooster becomes in mating.

If you are having fertility problems you may want to limit the number of roosters in your flock to encourage mating without too much competition . Some roosters will take a secondary roll in the flock when dominated by the other roosters. Old, infertile roosters will dominate fertile roosters and not allow them to mate. A single rooster can manage ten hens. Make sure that your hens and roosters are around the same size. Drastic size differences do not help with mating.

Old roosters will lose fertility. They will continue breeding but their attempts will be unsuccessful. One problem that a lot of older roosters have is that they become overweight. This will lower fertility and also make the act itself harder to do. Roosters tend to drop in fertility after their third year.

A young cockerel can try to mate with a pullet but not succeed in getting the job done. They will need to do a lot of practicing before they start to get it right. Many older hens will also reject the advances of these young cockerels.

Diet is an important variable in fertility. Roosters on a natural diet of feed, table scrapes and foraging for bugs will remain fertile longer than those eating a calcium rich diet of layer food. The addition of vitamins such as A and E can help boost fertility. There are products such as “Rooster Booster” that may help. I would advise eliminating low nutrition food such as corn or bread which can cause roosters to become overweight. I supplement with ground up winter wheat, calf manna and green fodder in the late winter to get ready for spring laying.

Create a comfortable environment to encourage breeding. Flocks that feel threatened by predators are less likely to breed. Keep your coop clean and sanitized. Give them plenty of room to move about. Keep your roosters and hens together at all times so that they can have a set pecking order. Old roosters will need to be rehomed and new roosters can be added.

Silkies have very fluffy bottoms with lots of feathers that get in the way of semen delivery. Trim the area around the vents above and below on both your hens and your roosters. Just use a pair of scissors and cut away enough of the feathers so that contact can more easily be made.

Hopefully these tips can solve your fertility problems and soon you will have all the fluffy, baby chicks your heart desires.

For tips and tricks for raising outstanding silkies check out our Chicken Learning Center at VJPPoultry.com . VJP Poultry is an NPIP and state inspected hatchery located 30 miles north of St. Paul. We hatch out silkies all year long so we always have stock available. Like us on Facebook to get weekly updates on what we currently have for sale.

Victoria J. Peterson

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Silkies for Sale – 3/24/17

March 25, 2017March 25, 2017 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

The Secrets of Silkie Vaults at VJP Poultry- 3/21/17

March 21, 2017December 1, 2018 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

20160605_153326 If you have ever wondered what you call that extra bump at the top of a silkie chicken’s head, it is called a Vaulted Skull.. They are very easy to see in newborn silkie chicks but become less noticeable as the chick grows up. Not all silkies have them. About half of my chicks hatch with noticeable vaults. They make the chick appear very cute and that is one reason they are very popular with people purchasing silkies.

Vaulted skulls are common in silkies and in polish chickens. It started out as a mutation. People then selected it because they liked the look of it. They polish had them first. The polish were then bred into silkies to improve and create larger crest sizes. Often chickens are bred together to get new colors, traits and types. Because polish have had this trait longer than silkies, their vaulted skulls are more closed and less susceptible to injury.

A vaulted skull is a skull which has an opening at the top not unlike when a human baby is born. The soft spot on a human skull grows together and become hard. Sometimes a silkies hole will grow over but sometimes it does not. There are pictures online which shows silkie chicken skulls with this opening.

Because of having a vault, a part of the silkies brain is therefore unprotected. A vaulted skull will just have skin and down covering the opening of the skull. Since there is an opening in the silkies skull, it can allow a portion of the brain to protrude through the opening. This is what causes the look of the bump on top of their heads. This can cause the chicks to be quite delicate. Once they are a month old, the bones in the vaulted area usually grow thicker and closer together.

A vault on a silkie looks like the crest has a rubber band around it. The skull vault gives more stability to the crest as as well as shape. Birds with large crests often have crests that flop over to one side or the other. Something about the fact that the skull is open stimulates feathers to grow that way which can look very attractive. Silkies born with vaults are more apt to have larger crests as adults and are said to win more poultry shows.

Silkie chicks with or without vaults can have nice top knots. It all depends on the quality of the line. The standard states that a silkie’s crest should be nice and round and even in shape. I like to think of it looking like a cotton ball or powder puff on top of the head.

Extremely vaulted heads should be moved to a separate brooder for added protection. They can be injured if something hits them on top of the head or if they run into something. The chicks with the huge vaults are usually the ones more likely to get stuck in the shells. They have a hard time pipping since they can’t move rotate in the shell very well. They are the ones more likely to need help hatching out.

People wonder if it is worth it to purchase a silkie with a large vault. Understand that you are taking a risk. Some people chose silkie chicks that do not display a vault for that very reason. Vault or not, all silkie chicks will develop nice crests. It is difficult to tell for sure which adult birds were born with vaults if you didn’t keep records. Since vaults are here to stay in most lines it is important to understand how you can protect your bird.

Victoria J. Peterson

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Silkies For Sale – 3/17/17

March 17, 2017 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

How We Incubate Our Eggs at VJP Poultry – 3/14/17

March 14, 2017December 1, 2018 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

20170314_125029 In a previous blog we discussed how to improve the hatchability of an egg before it begins to incubate. In this second part, we will discuss how to improve your chances of having the egg hatch after it arrives in the incubator.

Your stored eggs should have been resting in a cool, dry spot. I actually tip the egg carton in which I am storing the eggs each day . I remove the eggs from the cool area about 6 hours before I place them in the incubator so that they can gradually warm up to room temperature. If you put cool eggs into a warm incubator, the eggs will sweat and condense water.

Your incubator should have been turned on 24 hours prior to your putting eggs in it. I have thermometers to test the temperature before and later after I put the eggs in. Still air incubators are set a a slightly higher temp than circulated air incubators. I have circulated air and I keep the temp at 99.5 degrees. Check the temp at different spots in the incubator. You may find temperature differences at the corners and sides and also in the middle. I keep water in the troughs at the bottom of the incubator. Sometimes I will weigh and record the weight of each egg in grams using a scale. I then weigh the eggs again at 7 days, 14 days and 18 days. If your humidity is correct you should note a drop of around 2 grams at each weighing. If they are not losing enough weight then your humidity is too high. If they are losing too much weight, then you will need to increase the humidity in your incubator.

Try to fill the entire incubator with eggs. The heat will be more evenly distributed that way. Make sure that the automatic turners are working and moving. If you are self turning the eggs, I set a timer on my phone to remind myself to turn the eggs every four hours.

I candle my eggs at day 7 and remove all of the eggs that don’t show veining or that have a single blood ring around the middle of the egg. These eggs will not hatch. I use a small, strong LED flashlight to candle.

I use one incubator for incubating the first 17 days and another as a hatcher for days 18-21. When I switch to the hatcher, I mark where the air cell is and make an X where the air cell dips the lowest in the egg. When I put them on their sides, I make sure that the X is showing on top of the egg. That is where the chick will probably make its external pip. I make sure that the eggs are spaced out and not touching if I can help it. I like the fat end facing me so that I can see pipping progress easier. I also like to leave a space where I can add water when I need to without disturbing the eggs. They need two days on their sides so that they can get into position for pipping and zipping.

I use Brinsea octagons for hatching. Brinsea is no longer making that model. Their new Brinsea incubator is the Ovation 28 Eco. I keep track of what my fertility rate is and what my hatching rate is. I also open up any unhatched eggs to see what went wrong and try to improve next time.

I hope these suggestions were useful to you. What works for one person may not work for another. The climate you live in will also effect the humidity and the ability for your eggs to hatch. Good luck on all your future hatches from VJP Poultry!

Victoria J. Peterson

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