Blue Silkies are the dreamy sky-colored fluff-balls that brighten your mornings. Their soft, slate-blue feathers and sweet demeanor add a whimsical, magical touch to your flock and make every interaction feel like a fairytale.
You will receive 1 bird per hatch date and quantity ordered.
Feather Color
Blue Silkies are recognized by the American Poultry Association. If you breed a blue silkie hen with a blue silkie rooster, your silkie hatch will produce roughly 50% blue silkie chicks, 25% splash silkie chicks, and 25% black silkie chicks. Blue Silkies can have many unique shades of blue. This can vary from blue silkies that are so dark in color that they can appear almost black to also being so light that they can almost be considered lavender or self-blue. However, lavender, self blue, and black are entirely different colors.
Physical Characteristics:
Silkies owe their famously soft, fluffy appearance to their unique feathers, which lack barbicels and feel more like down than traditional feathers. While this makes them irresistibly touchable, it also means they get wet easily. Their charm doesn’t end there. Silkies proudly display striking oval turquoise-blue earlobes, often have an adorable pom-pom crest on their heads, and may sport a muff and beard. Most Silkies have five black toes with feathering on two, though some might be born with only four.
For families interested in showing, it is important to note that not every bird will meet full show standards. Because certain traits such as crest, muff, or toe count cannot be chosen at the time of ordering, we recommend purchasing multiple birds and as they grow, select the one you feel best represents the breed. We focus on continuously improving both personality and type with every generation, and while our bloodlines often shine in 4H and show settings, these birds are also beloved as gentle family companions. Your order will be randomly fulfilled based on availability at pickup.
Silkies tolerate both cold and heat if sheltered and do well in winter climates as long as care is provided to keep their feathers dry in wet weather. Their downy feathers prevent flight, so roost bars should be low. Nesting boxes should be at least 12” x 12” x 12”, though slightly taller is appreciated. Black Silkies are perfect for small spaces or mud-free runs and are even suitable as apartment emotional support animals, provided they have a chicken buddy.
Eggs Hens Will Gift: Silkies are moderate layers, gifting 2-3 small cream-colored eggs per week. While they may not be prolific, they make up for it with their entertaining personalities, cuddly nature, and excellent mothering instincts.
Personality:
Silkies are playful, gentle, and social. They love being handled, enjoy lap time with children, and will often follow you around “talking” and interacting with their family. They are excellent for gardens, naturally controlling pests like caterpillars while fertilizing plants. Watching Silkies explore the yard or drink morning dew is endlessly entertaining. Their calm, docile, and affectionate nature makes them ideal pets, and their mothering instincts are unparalleled among backyard poultry.
History:
Believed to have originated in China during the Han Dynasty, Silkies are historically significant. The Chinese term for Silkie is wu-gu-ji, meaning black-boned. Marco Polo described seeing a bird with black skin and “hair like a cat” in 1298. Silkies were used in Chinese medicine for their high carnosine content and first made their way to the Western world via Marco Polo. They gained popularity in the early 1900s through traveling circuses where they were described as “chickens with fur instead of feathers.”
Sexing Method:
Silkies are generally only offered as unsexed straight runs because their sex is not reliably identifiable until mature, and vent sexing is unsafe for bantam breeds. To assist families, we offer unsexed chicks with our female coverage option or DNA-sexed females. Without DNA sexing, plan for roughly 50% or more of your order to be roosters. Some families order extra female covered chicks to ensure they get the number of girls they want, returning roosters for a store credit to use toward organic feed, more birds, or flock care.
Chick: Blue Silkie
Most families are attracted to obtaining their chickens from us because we are proud to be completely different than typical feed store/ hatchery industry standards. Industry standard is to sex as accurately as possible and sell as pullets (female chicks) and force customers to accept a >10% chance of an accidental rooster without the ability to accept returns nor refunds. In addition, industry standard is to sell bantams (such as silkies) as straight runs since they are too small for safe vent sexing. We offer multiple sexing options.
Male
If you are lucky enough to have a rooster, our male sexing option is a great way to save money on a wonderful breed.
Unsexed
This option means that the chicks have not yet been sexed and are sold as a straight run. While nature usually averages half girls and half boys in high volumes, families should only order if prepared for >50% possible roosters.
Female Coverage
This is our most economical choice for families seeking a female. We kept city ordinances that restrict rooster ownership in mind. This option is great for families that want to enjoy a backyard flock of ladies. We use traditional sexing methods on the breeds that capable of being vent sexed, home accidental roosters, and issue store credit of original purchased price. To learn more about how we sex baby chicks based on their breed view: How to Sex Chickens.
Depending on the breed, sexing accuracy can range as low as 50% for bantam breeds, 90% for standard breeds, and as high as 95% for auto sexing breeds. Our female coverage option is not a service fee for sexing the chick, it is the cost difference between purchasing a male or a female chicken. We do not believe in grinding males alive nor suffocating them as day olds to enable a profit when selling a stated female chick at ridiculously low prices. Thus, our female pricing takes into consideration the male left behind with each female purchased. Male chicks are typically half the price of a female.
To qualify for rehoming, the rooster must remain in perfect health. If the family decides to return the rooster, a store credit in the amount of original purchase price is provided. As a family, you are welcome to decide to keep any accidental rooster and forfeit the credit.
DNA Sexed Female Chicks
For families that get emotionally bonded quickly and do not want to risk a future discovery of a rooster, we offer DNA sexing. DNA sexing is the only true accurate method of sexing baby chicks. DNA testing is a significantly higher financial investment. In most cases, it is 3x the cost as (1) female sex covered chick.
Balance accuracy with financial investment
The sexing decision is one that needs to be made at time of purchased and the original order cannot be altered once the order is fulfilled. It is important as a family to determine the right balance between sexing accuracy and financial investment for your family’s situation.
We provide as much information on our website as possible to ensure families make an informed decision based on their situation and lifestyle. Some breeds are more accurate in sexing and most families find our female coverage adequate in providing a free home for their accidental rooster (up to $100 savings) and use the store credit towards a replacement or our organic feed. While harder to sex bantam breeds, or families that know they will develop a with strong emotional attachment prefer to invest in DNA sexing.