I’ve been wanting to share with you something new we added to the homestead this year. Silkie bantam chickens!

We hadn’t raised chickens in a few years. Between the abundance of quail eggs and duck eggs we were getting, we had no need of more eggs for our family, so we were not looking to add chickens to the homestead for laying eggs. However, I was wanting to find some chickens for hatching eggs. Since we keep our incubator busy each year hatching out eggs regularly, I was hoping to find some broody chickens that could help hatch out eggs for us. Thus began the search for broody hens!

I started researching the breeds of chickens most likely to sit on eggs. That led me to bantam chickens (the small size chickens.) I liked the idea of small chickens, they would be cute, and less expensive to feed to boot.

As we looked at different kinds, I told my family “I definitely don’t want a breed that has feathered legs,” thinking they would get too messy and muddy in the winter. Little did I know…

I learned that many types of bantam chickens were highly likely to sit on eggs, but that there was a type of chicken pretty much guaranteed to sit on eggs. And that type was called a silkie. Over and over again I kept coming across the same thing- that silkies were hands down the very best chickens for hatching out eggs. (Now, I’m sure there have been plenty of wonderful broody hens in all different breeds, I’m simply sharing what I kept coming across while researching.)

I had seen pictures of silkies in the past and admittedly, they didn’t seem very practical to me. I do appreciate homestead animals that are good producers and pay for themselves, and I thought silkies seemed like fluffy pets. Could they even see where they were going with all that fluff on their heads? Also, did I mention they all have feathered legs? That was on my “No” list before. But… the more I read the more I was being convinced. And then the “maybe” we should consider getting silkies turned into “we absolutely MUST get silkies!” B and I were researching together and we might have started getting a little silkie obsessed…

{It turns out there was a whole world of people obsessed with their silkie chickens. People dressing their silkies up… hair accessories… you name it. We found it all quite hilarious, and entertaining.}

That was early this year, and chicks weren’t even showing up at the feed stores yet, so should be plenty of time to put our order in, right? Well, chickens of all kinds were selling out everywhere, and silkies in particular were very hard to find in stock. We searched all over the place, and finally found one company online that had not sold out yet. We placed our order for silkie chicks, glad we found some. But awhile later (months later, when they were supposed to ship), we were notified by the company that there was a shortage of chickens of all kinds for 2023, and absolutely all silkies for the year, and they would have to refund our money. Darn!

The search began again. We ended up purchasing silkie eggs online to hatch out in our incubator, rather than chicks, and Jeff called ahead and was able to reserve the last few silkie chicks the feed store was going to be getting in. So this spring we brought home a few fluffy silkie chicks from the feed store, and we hatched out some more.

We’ve grown very fond of these funny little chickens. They’re cute. They’re sweet. B likes to carry them all around, and we have a few that are very tame because of it. I didn’t realize how much I had missed the sound of a rooster crowing, until it became a regular occurrence again. To me, that is such a comforting, familiar sound. I also appreciate how great chickens are about eating up food scraps, and all the garden extras. It’s so nice to have chickens around the place again!

We currently have six silkies. Four hens- Muffin (white), Peregrine (black), Coco Bee (grey), and Peanut (gold), and two roosters- Treebeard (grey, and yes the name was inspired by the Ent in Lord of the Rings), and Pistachio (gold.) We had two go home with my dad and stepmom, named Bawk Bawk and Hey Hey. And we had a handsome rooster just go to live with our friends. [Edited to add: They named him Indiana Jones. I love it!]

Some friends of ours also got silkies for the first time this year, and we laughed about how we thought of them when we first came across them (she used the term “purse chicken”), versus how we feel about them now.

The first silkie eggs were a delight to find. Though the tiny quail eggs are still the most adorable eggs on the homestead, the silkie eggs are pretty darn cute. This time of year we won’t be leaving any eggs in the nest to be hatched out by the ladies, but come spring we’ve got lots of fun plans.

As I write this, in December, it’s our rainy season in Western Oregon. Though we have our silkie chickens in a covered area for the winter, they still get a little wet and bedraggled looking, as you can see in some of the pictures. B mentioned bringing them in the house so they can dry out and warm up. The fact that I hesitated before answering (rather than replying with an immediate no)… might show the effect these little fluffballs are having on me. 🙂