Sad news
Orihime, the Silkie hen who lived with us, has passed away. About a year ago she coughed up blood once. I put a hose in her mouth, rinsed it out with water, and she recovered. This time it seems it happened again while I wasn’t watching. Maybe the blood blocked her windpipe, or maybe it was an illness — I don’t know. In the morning I found her lying there.
The Silkies nobody wanted
While I was feeling sad, I got a message from someone at a shop that sells insects. They had taken in a lot of Silkies that were going to be thrown away — did I want them? I went to look, and there was a bird who looked exactly like Orihime.
These Silkies came from a family that let them roam free in their garden. Hawaii has few natural predators, so one day a hen appeared with chicks — “How cute!” — and the birds kept multiplying into dozens. The black ones are pure Silkies, and the patterned one is half Silkie, half wild chicken. Even pure Silkies are hard to rehome, and nobody wants a half-breed. They grew up wild, so none of them are tame. There’s also an adult Silkie rooster who was dumped as a grown bird.
Why Silkies get dumped
Silkie chicks are small and hard to sex at hatching, so they’re sold as a mix of males and females. People buy six at random, and if they turn out to be roosters, they get thrown away near waste facilities, in parks, everywhere. Some people even use them for target practice. Silkies can’t survive in the wild: their fragile, fluffy feathers let them hop only about 60 centimeters, cats come out at night, wet feathers never dry, and they pick fights with wild roosters they can’t win. Silkie roosters also have high, piercing crows; neighbors complain, and the birds get dumped. So I took them in — more roosters.
Sumi, whom I introduced before, was also found dumped in front of a laundromat.
Meet the Silkie half-breed
Silkies have black skin (even black bones), a large flat comb, hair-like feathers that lack the “zipper” of normal feathers, feathered feet, and five toes instead of four. This half-breed inherited the flat comb, about half the fluffy head, the feathered feet and the five toes, but his wing feathers are normal, so he can fly. Half-breeds can often survive in the wild. Our Pen-chan is about a quarter Silkie, too.
He’s definitely a rooster—he’s been acting important all morning. With Sumi, we now have four Silkie roosters and one half-breed. Grow up healthy!
Thank you for watching Chicken Paradise. Rest well, Orihime.