# Silki pigeons



## warriec (Feb 2, 2007)

Have you heard of silki chickens. Well there is a silki pigeon too. I saw some few weeks back in the market but could not take a photo as i didnt have a camera..

they have unique feathers like a silki chiken. Not frill back type at all. i heard they do crop up here and there.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

I've seen quite a few Silky Fantails and Doves in the shows I've been to. They are quite interesting looking birds. HorsesGot6 recently got a new bird that has a type of silky feathering. Pictures of this bird are here: http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=24042

Terry


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I used to have a pair of Silky chickens. 
When in pigeons, they can have just a little and look like most of the silky doves you see, or they can get as "fluffy" as the Silky chickens (well, sorta...it depends on what breed you have as to how fluffy it looks. Fantails are a good example.) If a bird is homozygous for silky, they can look pretty bad. The head of one of the homozygous silkies I've seen, was bald...and *all *of it's remaining feathers were silky. The mutation was first called Lace, but it's more commonly called Silky now. Another thing close to silky is porcupine. Instead of the feathers opening up into fluffy feathers, they stay in the sheaths, making the feathers like porcupine spikes.

Here's some pictures.

Some silky pigeon x dove hybrids:
http://www.ringneckdove.com/Wilmer's WebPage/pigeon_dove_hybrids.htm

Silky doves (and other weird things) -
http://www.ringneckdove.com/Wilmer's WebPage/oddities.htm

Silky fantail - http://users.boardnation.com/~slobb...ction=display;threadid=10;start=0;boardseen=1


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## warriec (Feb 2, 2007)

the one that i saw had longer feathering. was similar to a wet pij. i will try to locate some and take some shots.

Waht i saw was really not that bad looking. breeders say that its not a one off chance but can be bred.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Yeah they can be bred...but most people don't really like to breed them. They normally aren't good fliers or good at raising their own young (I'm sure the lack of feathers wouldn't help much with incubating..) or even breeding for that matter. They do make great pets though  If it looked more like a wet pigeon, then it definately didn't have as much silky in it as some do. Just enough to fray all the feathers I'm guessing? Pictures would be nice  Can't wait to see them!


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## Fantail (Sep 11, 2002)

Hi, I'm the one with who raised the silky in the picture on the one link. She is a faded brown spread. I raise silky fantails along with my normal feathered birds. The can not fly. But other than that they are just like normal feathered pigeons. They can incubate, hatch and raise young as well as normal feathered birds. They can live in our northern North Dakota winters just fine, down to -40 degrees. A silky should always be mated to a normal feathered bird. From that mating 50% will be silky and 50% will be normal feathered.
Ken


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