Silkie Colors

[wolfinator]

I have 4 Silkies, 2 roosters and 2 hens that are 6-7 months old. Oddly they are color paired. My question is what are their colors called? One hen is solid black (Mrs. Chevy), the other looks like roo in photo #1 (she's called Mrs. Ford).

Little background on their names. I lost both my adult sons on 1/24 & 2/2/24. My oldest was into vehicles, mainly Ford trucks. His first Ford truck was multi colored and the roo reminded me of it with his multiple colors. The first vehicle we worked on together was a 89 Chevy S10 Blazer, he painted it blackish gray in color, hence the name Chevy.

We also have standard roosters with names involving vehicles or parts of them: Slick (racing slick tires) is a splash Brahma, Carter is a Partridge Brahma, Edelbrock aka Brock is a Jersey Giant, and the baby (9 mo) is Dodge, a Starlight Olive Egger (we own 2 white Dodge vehicles).

Here are what my 2 Silkie roos look like.

This is Ford.

This is Chevy.

Pic #2

I'd been wanting some bantams for years, but the timing was never right (available/no money or have extra money/no bantams available) until this year. My first flock was different bantam breeds, but eggs wouldn't sell so we turned to standard breeds. My last bantam, a Showgirl, died in January 2021 (she was in Backyard Poultry Magazine as a photo contest winner in 2019).

I'm just looking for what their color patterns are called. Thanks ahead of time.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm so very, very sorry about the loss of your sons.

It's neat you're finding a little bit of solace in your chickens.

Ford's color or pattern is called partridge, and he's very pretty!

Chevy appears to me to be blue, but not sure if that's enough variation to call it splash or partridge.

 

[wolfinator]

I'm so very, very sorry about the loss of your sons.

It's neat you're finding a little bit of solace in your chickens.

Ford's color or pattern is called partridge, and he's very pretty!

Chevy appears to me to be blue, but not sure if that's enough variation to call it splash or partridge.

Thank you .

I too thought Ford might be a partridge pattern. I thought blue color were gray chickens, but he does have the gray flecked all over him. Where I was fortunate to 2 of each, I'm considering incubating or letting a small broody hen hatch out some of their eggs next year and possibly sell the chicks. They have standard size coop mates that have to be separated from the main flock due to age, deformities or injury and 1 that didn't leave her "momma". They're my go to hens for raising chicks if I buy or incubate any.

When we were sick a few years ago and couldn't tend the animals, my older son came up every 2-3 days to collect eggs and check on everything for 3 weeks. I just asked him to text me the egg counts so I could track their production. I gave him and his friend helping all the eggs. My younger son was instrumental in building my main coop, and 3 of 5 of the other coops. He's the one that got me started on raising chickens. His former boss had the bantams and needed to rehome them quickly (city laws/too many). Luckily I was in a position to buy everything flock, accessories and coops. My sons had 3 days to tear down 3 coops including a 1200 pound 8x10 2 room coop and move the 18 bantams. Plus it was raining 2 of the days moving everything almost 40 miles to us each way. At the end, they told me the conditions were horrible. That all 18 plus several dead ones, over a hundred of uncollected eggs were in the back section (4x8) of the 8x10 coop which had not been cleaned out in months of anything. We later discovered there were 9 hens/9 roosters. Some lived only a few weeks after getting them from health issues, the last few made it to 5 years. There was even a very tough crossed beak Showgirl hen that weighed 1/2 pound. We thought she wouldn't make it, but she lived to be 5 and weighed 1.5 pounds. She used to boss the 8 standard and 3 bantam roosters we had, they knew she meant business.