Adding a Silkie

[Backyardexplorer]

Hi all! I currently have 7 hens:
- 2 Easter eggers
- 1 lavender and 1 buff Orpington
- 1 splash ameraucana
- 1 black australorp
- 1 barred rock

All hens range within 6-8 months in age and coexist happily. My question is, I would really love to own a silkie. Would it be possible to successfully integrate 1 juvenile silkie into my existing flock? A breeder close to me is selling a wide range of ages from her silkie collection and I would love to scoop one up. However, I do not want to be cruel and place a silkie into a unsafe situation.

I live in southeast Texas, chickens free range from 7am-7pm daily. Would a silkie chicken need any other special accommodation for cold or heat for the climate we live in? So far, our chickens have done wonderful with cold and hot temps. Advice appreciated!

I also respect if you have experience with this and suggest I just wait a few years to add a silkie to my flock. I don’t intend to get raise any more chicks until we relocate to larger property, therefore it would be awhile.

 

[Slothinc]

I honestly would probably add two instead of just one… I don’t like adding any chickens to a new flock without a buddy. It is hard to say how your current hens will react. Silkies in general tend to be lower on the pecking order and get along with others. But they are easy to pick on, especially with larger hens. My flock is mostly silkies but I do have a couple of bigger hens - both of them were added as babies though, and they grew up with adult silkie hens so I think they don’t even realize that they are bigger, haha.

 

[Loving my girls]

I don’t have silkie experience however I wouldn’t recommend adding little weeny hens with big ones.
If you really feel you want to then I would most certainly get more than one to try to reduce or avoid bullying.

 

[K0k0shka]

Silkies are often bullied in mixed flocks with normal chickens, and if you only have one single silkie, and a newcomer, it will stand out in multiple ways and will invite violence. I wouldn't do it if I were you. Or if you absolutely have to have silkies, get several and introduce them very slowly and gradually with the see-don't-touch method. And make sure you have enough room - 4 square feet of floor space per chicken in the coop, 10 in the room, as an absolute minimum after they are integrated, but more would be better to reduce the chances for conflict. Or, better yet, if you can have a separate setup for a silkie only flock, that would be ideal. Chickens are individuals and how this plays out depends on your particular chickens to some extent, so you might get lucky and not have bullying issues, but that's a gamble and the chances for bullying are high, so it's a risk.

 

[2ndTink]

I have silkies and large fowl, generally I do not mix them. As the others have stated, you also do not want just one.

I have 1 silkie right now in with the layers and this is a TSC hatchery silkie so very different than my SOP silkies. Most of my SOP silkies are very docile, their crests block some of their vision and they won't push their way in for feed. They do well with calmer chickens who won't pick on them or push them away from feed.

The best set up would be if you could get 3 or 4 silkies and have a separate coop for them.

 

[Backyardexplorer]

Thank you all so much for your input! I will wait on getting a silkie until I can make the proper accommodations to get more than one!