#chickenblr

i love it when chickens do that…… they live their babies :)

[Photo set description: four photos of a flock of chickens. Each photo is centered on a black hen who is notably smaller than all the hens around her.]

Dollie is so small... Why?

Dollie is a one year old black Australorp, a breed that normally weighs 5-6lbs and lays large eggs.

Dollie weighs maybe 3 and change and lays eggs that are only a few grams away from being classed as small eggs. She has short and thin legs, thin toes, and a very light body under all that fluff.

She wasn't hatched runty, she grew normally until between 10 and 14 weeks, when she just... Stopped. No more growth. Stayed the exact same size and weight as she was when she was 3 months old.

The hens around her are barred rocks, a buff orpington, and a speckled Sussex. She should be comparable in size to *some* of them.

SNIFFFF

Today silkie breeders raging out at each other over project colors but they are arguing about colors that were orginally project colors themselves. Today's world ending enemy is the buff mottled birds.

You got people saying things like "Buff Mottled" isnt "real" because Buff is a solid color and Mottling breaks up the color with white 🤣

Any color can be mottled. Think of mottling in chickens like piebald in other animals it just removes pigment in patches and doesnt actually change the base color.

Orginally waaaaay back in time Silkies basically came in one color and that was Recessive White. Buff, Blue, Chocolate, Dominant White ect were all project colors until they were accepted into the SOP in their various categories.

The main gripe Im hearing people complain about is that mottling messes with the expression of the fm gene (fibromelanosis) but the same can be said for other popular project genes such as barring. If everything about the silkie fits the standard of perfection do we really need to be obsessed with the expression of fibro when these genes directly affect and lighten skin pigment? If a buff silkie is on the wrong base color it also can have its skin lightened. These are just the natural affect of the genes BUT there is one thing these people are missing..

Unlike barring or other genes Mottling can be selected for in its presentation! A bird who is hyper mottled is going to have more lightening then a bird who is more conservatively marked. When the mottling isnt expressing the skin should be just as dark and could theoretically still be used to judge its SOP especially since you can run a solid color pen and mottling pen at the same time.

Anyway thats your niche chicken drama for the day. You get breeders pearl clutching and whining like they dont have "paint" breeding pens themselves. My opinion is that breeders should care more about their breeds health and stop being obsessed with color. I have been seeing more and more silkies with severe brain hernias and vaults, that will always be way more problematic to me then color!

Anyway here is a localish breeder to me and a Red Mottled silkie she produced. It does have bad skin color but its obviously a silkie and wont end the world lol