Hello -
I have received the VPA newsletter for a while and recently joined the board and I love all the info you can find here. We have a small flock of hens in Scottsdale and we'd love to add some Silkies to our group. Does anyone know where we can find some? I'm not sure if I want to go through a feed store, we had back luck with that avenue, so we are looking at going through a breeder.
Thanks!
Susan
Replies
Hi Cindy - We can't have any roosters where we live. We did have one, but one of my neighbors complained so I had to re-home him :-(
We have the same problem. Although our HOA rules don't specify no roosters, and don't specifically address having chickens either, the rules say we can keep animals normally considered as "pets" and not for commercial purposes, as long as the number are within reason and they don't cause a noise or other type nuisance or safety/health hazard. So...we're interpreting this as it's OK for to have chickens! To keep the "pet" status, we bought one for each Grandchild and one for us (5 total) and they each have names, plus they've been hand raised so are very friendly (so far). As long as they're not noisy or fly over the fence, I don't think the neighbors will even know we have them, and we can keep them on the "down low". A rooster would definitely not keep with the stealth mode! The 4 regular sized chicks are definitely hens, but we're crossing our fingers on the Silkie!
Are you only looking for hens or would a rooster be OK? We have one 6 week old Silkie that we bought as a straight run and are hoping it is a hen, since our HOA won't allow roosters. If it turns out to be a rooster we'll need to re-home him. I'm not sure how long it will be before we know, since I think Silkie roosters are hard to identify even as adults. Someone told me I'll know when it either starts laying eggs or crowing, so it may be a few more months. If you want, I'll keep you in mind if we do need to re-home a rooster Silkie.
Susan,
I have a few silkie hens that are available that I bought from a breeder. Please email me at gbirkett@cox.net for any questions. I am located in the north valley. Please include your phone number so I can call you back. I don't check this site very often.
Thankyou,
Gretchen