What the heck are we?

This is the question I posed the other day on BYP for Tiger and Lily. They're obviously Silkie crosses but I wasn't quite sure what the cross or crosses might be or what you might call their colours/patterns other than "pretty". It's easy to guess the cross might be pekin. It's a common enough cross with silkies and they rather look like it. But take a look at this pattern... it looks kind of like spangled doesn't it? Besides it's funner to try and pick the genetics apart!


And then there's this one who someone guessed might have some Japanese bantam in her because she's a bit smaller, narrower and has a jaunty set to her tail and if so the colour might be called brown-red or golden birchen.


Now... for what you've all been waiting for - the chicks! I picked up my new little ones yesterday and they're so cute! Unfortunately the 5th baby didn't absorb it's yolk correctly and passed away. After letting them settle in I banded them and weighed them up. They're already starting to get some of their bloodfeathers in. So here's the kids at about 4 days old...

No band - the smallest of the lot at 1 oz. and obviously the aforementioned "light chick". ;-)

Red band - 1 1/2 oz

White band - the lunker of the lot at 2 oz., has a tiny speck of down in the middle of his legs.

Yellow - also 1 1/2 oz. and also having one speck of down in the rear of his leg.

An example of size difference between the last lots male and female! Green is male, non-band is female! LOL At about 29 days old I think? Will post some more of the growing up photos later tonight when I've got some time to resize them!