Bearded Silkies for Sale | Buy Bearded Silkies, Various Colours, Online | UK (2024)

Good With Most

This breed will be suited with most other breeds, however, some delicate breeds are not compatible with Hybrids or more aggressive breeds. Check the full breed guide for more information.

Chicken Buying Guide

Make Great Pets

This breed make wonderful pets for both adults and children, they will have a docile nature and will be easy to handle, they will enjoy human interaction and company.

100-150 Medium White/Cream PA

This breed will lay up to 150 medium cream to white coloured eggs per year, they are known for being broody.

Character

Silkie chickens are a smaller large breed of chicken with soft silky feathers and a docile, gentle nature. Silkie hens are renowned for their clucky curiosity and their mothering instincts, often going broody even if they are not sitting on eggs. They make fantastic pets and are great fun for children, they are ideal garden hens, they will not destroy your flower beds or scratch up your grass and will be content pottering around your garden with you. Silkie co*ckerels are also docile and less aggressive than other breeds and make fine, caring fathers to young, even helping mum with her duties.

Suitability

Silkies although suited to our British climate prefer to stay dry and warm, their soft feathers have no natural waterproofing so if they get wet through and then cold it can lower their immune system. During the winter months you can wash and blow dry them. They have feathered feet so foot maintenance in the winter is important, and if possible, keep in a covered dry run or a run that has good drainage with gravel or bark, they would not be happy in a wet or muddy environment. They are however resilient and robust when being handled by children, they do go very broody and will often sit on an empty clutch so if you’re looking for a prolific layer the Silkie is perhaps not for you, they will give you 4-5 small white eggs a week through the summer months, they tend to stop laying in the winter, they are a flightless bird so will need a house near or on the ground, they do not like to climb or roost.

History

Originating from East Asia the Silkie chicken is a light feathered large fowl not a bantam breed, however they are very small compared to a regular large fowl, they do also come in a bantam size these are known as minis, at Pipinchick we rear the regular Light Feathered Large Fowl. The oldest records of Silkie existence dates back to the 13th century, when Marco Polo wrote of these fluffy birds on his travels to China. He recorded that they had black skin and the hair of a cat. The exact date the Silkie made it to Europe is not knows but they are believed to have made their way with traders and merchants navigating and passing through the Silk Route. The white Silkie was he original colour found, then over time the other colours have been created often having been cross bred with other breeds for the colouration and then the Silkie traits bred back in, as such, even different colours of Silkies can have slightly different personalities with the white often being the most confident and will usually be your top hen. They will lay up to 150 small white/cream coloured eggs a year when not broody, their life expectancy is about 9 years.

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