FAQ

why can I not order a single juvenile?

When we first started offering our Silkies to new homes, we did allow single juveniles to go on their own. Some did okay but others, not so well. We noticed messages requesting advice for declining health in these young ones. All of these birds were having a hard time blending into the flock, were being bullied and isolated. They would all essentially shut down and waste away. Wouldn’t you though? This isn’t fair to our birds, so we made a change and now all of our juveniles must go with a buddy. The results were as we hoped and now that all of our juveniles have a buddy to go through quarantine and flock introduction with, we don’t get messages about depressed birds that are not thriving.

Is shipping live birds safe?

We have never experienced a loss when shipping juvenile and older birds. However, we have lost chicks during transit due to USPS delays and no longer honoring their guaranteed 1-2 day delivery with their Express shipping service. Due to this, we no longer can offer day old chicks. We now ship chicks at 2-3 weeks of age who have been given a great start on our end and since making this switch, we have only experienced a single chick not make the trip. We also now pack all of our birds with water bottles that we feel made the biggest impact on getting them to their new homes healthy. We also pack their shipping box with a lot of feed so they have all they need for the 2-4 day journey to you.

How do you determine gender of your silkies?

We send in feather samples when the chicks have suitable feathers for testing, when they are about 5-6 weeks old, for DNA testing. We have found this to be the most reliable method for us.