The Silkie does not have the hooks on the ends of the tiny strands of the web, which are fluffed out rather than held together.The Ayam cemani chicken may be the most deeply pigmented creature on earth. “It’s just a big, crazy silkie world out there.”įeathers have several parts to them the main part being the quill that grows from beneath the skin which tapers off up the center of the feather to become the shaft.įrom each side of the shaft comes the web which are tiny strands that are held together by small hooks or barbicels on the ends of the strands which gives the feather their typical appearance. “We share funny pictures and we share tragedies. “We talk about our problems and our illnesses and our successes,” Lee said. Regularly, silkie owners communicate, particularly using social media, such as the American Silkie Bantam Club website message board. She said raising silkies is more than business or a hobby – it’s a way of life. “The average bird, if it’s a top notch bird, is $250,” Lee said. Today, Lee has nearly 100 paint silkies, which she sells often. There is just a little bit of difference.” “I make the distinction because mine have never been mixed with anything, ever,” she added. “They are not making a distinction anymore between the European and American paints. However, Lee lamented that some silkie owners are breeding together the European and American paint silkies. She continued to mix her own birds, never blending bird breeds. When those four painted silkies appeared, Lee “got serious.” Of the four, only half were hens “but that was enough,” she said. “Then, one day I walked out there…and out of 10 chicks, four of them had spots. “I got nothing for four years,” Lee said. Lee allowed the same grayish rooster to breed her, and “still years went by with my hopes always to get another few spotted silkies,” she said. That first spotted silkie that was born on Lee’s four-acre Fuzzy Fanny Farm grew to be a hen. She won the Open Champion Non-Standard Variety award in the American Silkie Bantam Club Eastern National-Ohio National in Columbus, Ohio. 9, Lee claimed the top prize at one such national competition in Ohio. “We are counting on that happening,” Lee said.Īnyone entering a painted silkie into competition has to enter as a “non-standard” unless that change occurs. That’s the year of an official silkie qualifying show in Knoxville when silkies will be considered for “the standard.” However, paint silkie owners have set their eyes to 2017 as a year of possible standard acceptance. The standard says they have to have dark eyes. Sometimes paint silkies have light-colored eyes. The standard says it has to have black skin. No poultry associations officially recognize the two-color “paints.”Īlso, pink skin is not acceptable, which some paint silkies possess. They are the only chicken to have black, or more exactly, dark slate-blue skins, according to the club.Īnd, there’s this: “The colors which are recognized by both the American Poultry Association and the American Bantam Association are White, Black, Blue, Buff, Gray, Partridge and Splash.” Silkies possess five toes instead of the usual four. Silkie experts labeled the bird an “American Paint Silkie.”Īccording to the national authority on silkies, the American Silkie Bantam Club, the silkie chicken possesses “many characteristics that set them apart from the other breeds of chickens the most obvious being the texture of their feathers which is almost fur or silk-like in appearance - hence their name.” I get a big giggle out of that all the time.” “All I did was walk into the barn and go, ‘Huh, look at that. “It was just a genetic mutation that allowed these polka dots,” she said about her ground-breaking chicken. “My birds never had anything mixed in,” said Lee, noting that in Europe other chicken breeds were used to create the paint silkies. “Paints” are silkies that are mostly white with the black spots. They achieved their goal by mixing in other breeds of chickens. “All of sudden there was a little mutated gene and this little spotted (white with black spots) chick came out,” said Lee, a horse-enthusiast who had moved from San Diego for the wide open fields of Middle Tennessee.Īt the same time, unbeknownst to Lee, there were two poultry geneticists in Europe that had been working for 18 years to create a white Silkie with black spots. She had placed all 10 “silkies,” named for their silk-like plumage, in the same heated barn room during that particularly harsh winter. Lee didn’t know it yet, but the chicks had recently hatched, and one of the baby birds was about to change her life. In the spring 14 years ago, Dickson County resident Judy Lee went out to check on her chickens – though the fluffy birds could have been mistaken for a small dog or cat.
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