Silkie bantams are not new to me.
I met my first silkies when I was in my very early teens. At the time, I volunteered to help at an upland game farm in the Eden Mills area of Eramosa Township. The resident gamekeeper took me along when he went to, as he worded it, “pick up a couple of cluckers.”
Those of you not in the chicken mode will not likely know what I am talking about. But cluckers are nothing more and nothing less than hens of some sort that have gone broody, meaning they are in a dire mood to sit on their eggs and hatch out some baby chicks, with a body temperature of 102 Fahrenheit and a feeling so strong that they will more often than not act as surrogate mothers to others of their kind, even to web-footed ducklings.
And if they are disturbed, they run around, making a loud, frustrated clucking sound, a good imitation of the gnashing of teeth, which all hens are definitely lacking.
When we got to the neighbour’s barn, he mentioned that two were here and a couple more, with the motion of his hand, were over there in the hen house. The first two, which had tucked themselves under the horse manger, were just the run-of-the-mill, common free-range chickens, but the two over there were hens of a different colour. He had a pen full of them, probably 20 or more, and they were white, like the whitest of snow. I was slack-jawed and awestruck when I first saw them.
Beyond their black beak was a short, flat powder-puff comb followed by a high, fluffy pom-pom crest covering the entire top of their head. Their feathers hold the furry likeness of the angora rabbit. Perhaps better explained as the Persian kittens of the bird world – soft and cuddly.
As we had forgotten to take boxes, I tucked one under each arm on the way home. Our intentions, and high hopes, were to have them hatch some eggs of the golden pheasant and some of the similar-sized wood duck’s eggs.
Silkie bantams originated somewhere in the Far East, possibly the Orient. They are feather-legged and have five-toed feet. Their bill, skin and flesh is black, making them quite ornamental but much less appealing on the Canadian plate. They come bearded and non-bearded in several colours: black, white, buff, gray, blue, and partridge, though white is the most prominent.
They don’t hesitate in earning their keep by laying three to four creamy white eggs each week. Their eggs are huge for the actual size of the bird, and they start laying at an early age.
They do well in confined areas, stand the cold well in temperatures down to freezing, fly very little, are exceptionally docile, tame easily, have a sweet personality, and are entertaining to watch, thus making them an undisputed ideal backyard bird for cleaning up the creepy-crawlies in your garden, yard and carport areas.
They will always bring questions from friends, neighbours and strangers alike. They are just fun birds to have.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105