Silkies Aren’t “Just Cute”—Here’s What You’re Missing

Silkie chickens are one of the most misunderstood breeds in poultry—and most people are getting it wrong.

In this episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, we sit down with veterinarian Dr. Nicole to break down what actually matters when it comes to breeding, raising, and selecting high-quality Silkies.

From genetics and defects to breed standards and real-world care, this episode cuts through the fluff and gives you practical knowledge you can actually use.

We cover everything from the truth behind Silkie traits like black skin and five toes, to common defects like crossbeak, duck toe, and poor crest structure—and how to identify and eliminate them from your breeding program.

We also dive into incubation, egg selection, housing challenges, and why Silkies require a completely different level of care than most chickens.

No guesswork. No gatekeeping. Just real poultry education.

We believe poultry breeders deserve accurate information, proven methods, and real guidance—not opinions, trends, or bad advice from people who aren’t doing it.

If you're serious about improving your birds, this episode is for you.

Join Carey of Show Pro Farm Supply and Jennifer of Bryant's Roost as we delve into chickens and quail (mostly)  to help you enjoy your birds more and worry less. Backyard chicken keeping shouldnt be stressfull, let's get back to the simple days

Valley Hatchery is a proud sponsor of Poultry Nerds, find more at ValleyHatchery.com

Transcript

0:38

Oh, disconnect day. Okay. Today, folks, we are going to talk about one of my absolutely favorite subjects jennifer and I have searched far and wide to try our best to find somebody. We have asked so many people to come on our show because we have a lot of listeners that like Silky's and they ask questions about Silky's. And that's something that she and I have never had. So we finally found somebody. We've got Dr. Nicole with us today and she's gonna tell us about the fluff balls. Hi, Nicole. How are you? Hello. Good. So nice to see you guys and get to talk about one of my favorite chickens ever. Tell everybody about yourself first. Okay. I live on about a two-acre lot in a subdi- division luckily with no HOA. With my family, I've got three small kids and my husband. We've got three dogs and a few cats. It just kinda comes with the territory of being a veterinarian. And we decided we wanted to get into chickens. And probably about Let's see, how old is my oldest? Eight years ago we purchased some layers and then the kids wanted to get into showing and they wanted a smaller chicken that they could handle. And when I was younger, I my parents would order by the hundreds meatbirds from hatchery. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the name, but- we always ordered from Mari McMurray. So each spring, we get all these boxes of these little meatbirds, and one year they decided to get into some layers, and of course they always throw in the free chicken. And the free chicken turned out to be a little silky rooster. And his name was five toe Hairy Sam. And and he was the sweetest little chicken ever. We used to carry that thing around everywhere, dress him up. And so when my kids wanted a, more of a pet show quality s- chicken we decided to go with some silkies. And I quickly found out my obsession with them had not dwindled at all. So it soon went from the kid's little fun pen to mommy's silkies. So the kids still have theirs. But I've been developing a line of white silkies probably seriously been breeding them now for about five years. And like you had mentioned, Carrie in the most recent podcast, it, that's about how long it takes for you to really start seeing some results. So this year, we're really excited to start showing them and showing off what we've been working on. So it's a little synopsis of where we're at. So we've got our real chickens, and then we've got a fun pen, and then we've got mommy silkies. So what colors you have white. Is that the only color? So we've, I, I have white that I've seriously been breeding. And then I've got a couple of blacks that I was thinking about starting, but my black rooster is hideous and I don't think I'm gonna get very far with him. So one of my good friends at an upcoming show in a couple weeks, she's I'll bring you a rooster." So we'll see what he looks like and if we can do anything with him. But I would like to do some black silkies, but it just, it takes up so much space, and on two acres, we can't go too far. You can have a lot of chickens on two acres. You can, but one of a, one of our acres is swampy and I can't put too many coops back there, so Sounds like a farm is in your future. We're trying. It is. I was gonna say, you know- If I can convince my husband. So you could tell your husband that it would be a tax rot off. It would be. Because for you, with you being a vet, if you just so happen to build a rather large barn where you could have patients in and things like that, and you have an office, then that whole part would be a tax write off. That's true. That's perfectly legit to me. And it probably, honestly, that's what it would come down to anyway. Yeah. We moved here from two acres, and I can tell you it's a huge difference, and how big is your farm now, Jennifer? 18 and a half acres. Nice. Yeah. I didn't wanna go over 20, so this worked- Yeah. pretty good. That is, yeah. Yeah, that's a nice size. Yeah. If it's not all swamp. No. There's a lot of swamp here up near St. Louis. Oh, no, it's 100% usable. Yep. So- That's too bad. All right. So if you guys are listening on a podcast, like audio only podcast, we have slides. So after you listen to us here and leave us a review on your podcast platform, head over to YouTube so you can actually see the pictures that we're fixing to show. But I do wanna point out when I was putting this slideshow together, instead of just plopping your chicken on the front, I like had to make it all pretty and put it in that frame and kinda show it off and- I like that. That, Jennifer, that has your signatures. And, I'm really impressed because I know that they're not your favorites, but you went above and beyond to make it look really nice. This is Nicole's picture that she sent me and then I fixed it so I could put it in that- I like it. bird that I took out of that picture. And then I'm awesome. So your whites are all white. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Now, do they have the slate face and the slate legs or- Yes. is that kind of pale as well? Nope. So the interesting thing about the silky is they have that hypermelanotic gene where they their bones, their skin and everything else is gonna be dark in color. So even though you know how the beak is clear, but you can, there's a bone under there. So when you're looking at the beak, it'll look blue, and that's because you're seeing the bone under there. Oh. If- Okay. Yeah. So you want the comb nice and dark like a mulberry to, dark blue, black color. You don't want, you don't want any white or pink s- skin anywhere on your silky, whether they're white or black or, blue, whatever color they are. So all these little modeled silkies that are coming out that have the little bright red comb and the white pink beak, that's not- not favorable. very standard. That would be- Kari, you pushed her before the s- the slide. I got all that in the qualifications. I'm so sorry. Yeah. I had to ask though because I've always wondered that. And it's easy to have them wash out. So that's something that you gotta be really careful of. So- So I did do a little research- on the silkies because I know noth- like literally nothing about them. Yeah. That's exactly what I have written down, too. Okay, good. I got it off the- Yep. I got it off the Silky Phantom Association. Is that what it is? Silky Bandom Association? Yep. I got it off their website. Yep. Yep they're a really old breed. They were found and recorded by Marco Polo as early as 1298. But like you have there, they didn't- Marco Polo? Yeah. Sorry, that caught me off guard. I just thought that was a game that you played in the pool. Yes, he was real. I- He found a lot of stuff. History was not my strong point, okay? Okay. I'd have to be a coach for that. Oh, wow. Okay. We're gonna, we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole, Mr. Schoolteacher. Okay. Go ahead, Nicole. And there's rumor that the silky breed became the way it is, with these little fluffy feathers and the chick-like characteristics with the big eyes and the really docile temperament is because the emperors were getting tired of always getting chicks for their kids, so they wanted a chicken to stay in chick form. So that's And then another use for them is in Chinese medicine because of the dark bones. They like those, apparently. Aren't they a delicacy in Australia, too? So they were used in traditional medicine. I don't know. Maybe. Could be. I know a lot of people will buy my extra coal roosters and they eat them, but- I don't, I can't. Those are her babies. I can't do it. They're my babies. And I'll be honest they're all wet and you see all that black skin. No, I just can't do it. Oh what else was I gonna mention? Oh the Dutch really furthered the breed a lot. And then they were introduced into the APA in 1874. And I think that's all- All right. all I got for the history. Yep. There's your standard colors. So I do white, some, trying to get my hands on some better blacks, and then my kids, they've got some splash, some blue, some cartridge. We've got one buff named Sarah, but they're all in a separate pen so that they don't get in with my white birds. Just, you just kinda slid that right in there. We just give them people names. Yep. So- Sarah's a good mom. this partridge color. That's like a purple color. Do we have a picture? No, I didn't get a picture of a partridge. No, I only sent pictures of myself. I'm curious, is that like a lavender purplish color or a sofa? No, it's a pattern. It's a pattern. And partridge a pattern- Yeah, it's a pattern. Okay. I was going by the dot you had. It was hopefulness. Yeah. Now- Here's a, here's our first rabbit hole. So on Canva, apparently when you try to change the color dots colors, it changes all of them into that palette. So I gave up about the six, the 16th try. So that's why there is a purple dot. It represents the comb little- There you go. That's what I was trying to do. We'll go with that one. You want a nice ballberry comb, yeah. All right. So tell us about these traits. Yep. So you wanna have five toes. So you've got a polydactyly animal, you've got that little extra toe in there. The feathers have no barbicles, so they don't stick together when they preen. They just stay fluffy. Like we'd mentioned earlier, they've got the black skin, bones meat, everything. It's all gonna be black, so that's where you have that nice purply black colored skin. You want nice feathers down the legs, and those should also be s- what we refer to as soft feathers and not the hard feathers that are gonna be, like you would see on a standard chicken. And very important too, not to lose that feathering down the middle toe. Is it on the outer toe too? Yep. So it'll be on the outer three toes, or the outer two toes there, and then the three medial or the three on the inside will be without feathers. Okay. So those extra two toes, those are back on the backside of the leg? Correct. Yep. Your regular chicken will just have one back there and then a silky will have that extra one. Gotcha. And you want them to be separate like that because a lot of how should I say? Ha- hatchery quality silkies, they'll have, those two toes will be fused or they will have a lot of webbing, which is called crab toe or they'll have a lot of duct toe going on. So they should look like that when you hold them up. Gotcha. All right, good to know. Yeah. All right. And then there's one of my young cockroach s- showing off, starting his stuff there. And I put that pickup just so you could see that he's got a nice dark blue earlobe tight wings, nice high tail, but it's not a squirrel tail, because again, with these breeds with the higher tails, you gotta be careful you don't go too far in a squirrel tail. Okay. So that black spot is his ear? Yep. And if you were to zoom in on it, you would see it's a shiny blue color. I thought that he was looking at me when I was putting the picture on the slide. No. No. He probably is, but you can't see him. Yeah. Oh my word. They just crack me up. How do you sex them? How do you know that's a boy? So if you look at his crest, he has, and he's sticking them up in that picture. He's got little like feathers coming off of his crest. And so they'll have those. He's also bigger and he's crowing I know he's a rooster, but once, once you s- have been around your chickens, I if somebody else handed me a bunch of four-month-old silkies, I probably couldn't tell theirs apart, but with mine, I can start to tell them apart about four months old, just to, how their characteristics are. And those little streamers on the head, that's one of the first things that's gonna give them apart. And they do have, what are they? The heckles on the neck- that those feathers are gonna look a little different. And they do have saddle feathers, Okay. So do you DNA sex yours? I don't because at this point in my program, I'm keeping everything until they're six months old, till I decide if they stay or go. So by that point, they're all either crowing or laying eggs, so they don't need to. Okay. Out of curiosity, what age when they start laying? Usually between six and nine months. Okay. All right. So a little bit later than your regular chicken. Yep, that that sounds like a standard bread bird. Yeah. Yep. There's a lot of standard birds, it's six, eight weeks. It's not, six, eight months. It's not, eight to 12, 15 weeks. It's not fast. Yeah, like some of the box door chickens, yeah. This one was in my cold pen. Because you see that middle toe lacking a lot of feathers there and unfortunately she had duck foot or duct toe. See how both those little toes were pointing down? So that, I, out of the, I don't know, 120 I hatched this early, late last year, early this spring I had two with duct toe and three with Rybeek, so not too bad, but I was a little surprised to see that pop up because I haven't seen that in quite a few generations. So that is recessive, if I'm understanding correctly. And- if you don't coll it out, you will end up with it everywhere. Watched. So cold pen it is, right? Yeah. Yep. And she went to a nice pet quality home. They're happy with her. It's not gonna affect her at all, but- definitely can't stay. Okay. So the one, the picture on the right is the one that I couldn't quite figure out last night, but now that I'm looking at it- Yeah. is that a one-eyed chick with blue lipstick on? No. That's a profile. And I just, I picked that one to show the blue e- ear because a lot of silkies you'll notice might have a red ear or white ear. So it's just one of those little picky points that you have to always make sure they've got a blue ear and a really dark brown to black eye and not a red or orange or light brown eye. Do you have to put their hair up in ponytails every morning so they can see where they're going? No. No. And that's another thing when you're breeding is not to overdo them. It's really easy to overdo them and make them so they can't see, and then you're gonna end up having to trim and put their crest up, which can be pretty If you don't know what you're doing, you can do some damage because they do, a lot of them have vaulted skulls. And if you put that, that scrunchy on too tight, you're gonna hurt their skull. Okay. Can we talk about that for just a second? Sure. So can you tell people what the vaulted skull is? So the vaulted skull is basically where the skull grows a little bit taller and is a little bit more prominent on the top and it's thinner. So there's still a skull there protecting the brain but it is thinner. It's not a fall, it's not a defect. A lot of people think it is but it does help balance the crest if you have Again, it's all about balance. You don't wanna have one with an extremely vaulted skull that could be dangerous. And you don't want one with too large of a crest either. You want the bird balanced. So having a s- a, moderately vaulted skull will give you that nice moderate crest that you're looking for. Anatomy-wise is there things to be aware of with the vault? Like you said, you can't exaggerate it one way, what could happen, and how would you know if you've exaggerated it? So if it's too big, s- a lot of them won't even hatch because they can't turn to unzip. Okay. The skull just gets stuck in there. And s- if they do hatch, like if you help them hatch out, you're gonna see a lot of neurologic signs with them. They might not be able to walk properly. They might have rye neck, or I've seen them to where they just kinda have almost like a head twitch to the, to one side. So they're not definitely not what you want in your breeding program. And that's one of the reasons why you might not wanna mix them with large fowl either because one corrective peck to the head, maybe where your larger chicken's not meaning to really hurt them, maybe just boss them around a little bit, could really hurt a silky, because that's, that skull is so thin up there. Okay. So how would you know if it's too much of a vault, like when they hatch, say? Well- Can you tell? Yeah. You, like I said, you, you can tell if they're not neurologically appropriate. Okay. sometimes they won't have any feathering on top. It'll be, like, bald and it'll just look really big compared to all your other babies. Okay, gotcha. Like a cone hits, the movie. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. And so that's one you wanna immediately put a little leg band on and say,"Okay, you're going into the pet, pet home." So in the incubation Facebook group that we have, we s- of course, there's a lot of silky people, and of course they wanna help them hatch. So then, of course, I am not about helping chicks hatch. I think if they can't hatch on their own, it's a sign of weakness, but I understand everybody does their own thing. So- Unless your five-year-old opens your incubator and shrink wraps them all, then I'll help them. So- But yeah, I agree. So if it is a silky and they do need help hatching, and then they also have exhibited neurological problems, then maybe suggest to people to look at their head and see if it's an exaggerated vault. Yeah. Yep, I would. Okay. Gotcha. That's good to know. I didn't know that. So- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, cool. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I put these side by side because I assumed you were showing me something. So I just wanted to show the difference between a hen and a rooster. You were asking how you could tell them apart and I should have flipped the picture on the left over so you could compare, head to head and cushion to cushion. But so on, on the left, her head is down at the bottom. And and again, this kind of shows balance. So you want the cushion and the crest to reflect one another. And I think that both of these birds are pretty well balanced. The one on the left, that's a little pullet. She's not quite done growing yet, so she'll fill out a little more. And then for your boys, you want them nice and wide in the back. So it's always important, I th- I see a lot of profile pictures of silkies online. Not many people will post pictures of the top because I feel like a lot of people might have a narrow bird or maybe not know to look there, but you see how wide his back is. So you want a nice wide bird. And that, and it goes for the hen as well. Because they really are made up of three balls, the cushion, the crest and the body. And then on the cockroll, you can see his little streamers going back there and then- I do see them now. Yeah. And then the head- Streamers. a little more smooth on the back of her crest. Is streamers a silky term or is it a technical term? It's, I've only ever heard it used in silkies. Okay. I don't know if other breeds have streamers or not. No. We have sickle feathers. Oh, okay. The ones that flare out over their tail? Yeah. Sickle feathers. All right. Which are beautiful. So we have a box of drowned rats. And, these are my babies getting their spring bath. So I was just gonna mention, and it's funny that, listening to your most recent podcast that Carrie had mentioned, if somebody doesn't do their research, he's not even gonna answer back their email, you know about a chicken. And so my point with this picture was that a lot of people see these cute little chickens online and they don't realize that they need a lot more care than a regular chicken. They'll need a bath at least twice a year to keep their feathers healthy. And they're not pretty when they're wet, as you can see. And then on top of giving them a bath, you have to have the means to dry them. So I have like one of those industrial dog blow dryers that everybody gets blow dried. And there's just, they're different than your average chicken. They don't boost. They sleep in little cuddle piles on the floor. So if you have them in with big chickens, they're gonna sleep under the roost and just get pooped all over. And I just- let me ask this- with you bringing that up about the way they sleep, when they are chicks and you've got them in a brooder, are they- are they real bad about piling up then? They they do sleep all piled up. I keep my brooder pretty warm though, so they spread it out and then- They will. So as long as it's warm, they won't pile and try to, hurt each other- Crush each other. anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. They do like to s- snuggle up with each other but they don't tend to overdo it, I don't think. I should've got a picture of when they all go into the coop at night. They just kinda, like, all lay down into a corner together. So the big birds do that. I'm not hearing anything that's out of the ordinary, so even my- But they won't- Won't be tense. They won't go on a roost at all. I have some breasts out there. Even if it's like a foot tall? Yeah. Some of them will hop up there, but they really don't. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if you put one of your layers on. They don't chicken. No, they don't. They just, they stay babies. I don't know. Yeah, because the Kiki Rikis that are with them are all over the place, flying up in the rafters and everywhere, and the silkies are just like,"All right, see you tomorrow." See, I'm gonna get me some kikirikis just because I like saying the word. You won't regret that? Every farm needs a tiny cock, I'm telling you. How do you spell that? Kiki Ricky, just like it sounds. It's a bunch of I's with some Ks and Rs. Ki- K-I-K-I-R-I? Is that a Kiki Riki? Kikiriki. Yeah. Different. That's a real thing. Yeah. Oh, I can hook you guys up. That's the table dancers. No, those are sharamas. They look just like them though. They're smaller. They're smaller and friendlier. They do look smaller. Ceramas are mean a lot of the time. Like these things, they look like they're the mi- miniature of miniatures. Okay. These are smaller than moderns. Yes. Hey, Listen, we're gonna do Kiki Rickis on another show. We're talking about silkies right now. Yep. This is a dad gum rabbit hole waiting to run down. Yeah. Just because you wanna spell it. Okay, what are we looking at on this picture? So this goes back to Carrie's earlier question about the lighter comb and this little pullet has a really pink comb and even her be- beak looks a little too light. So this one was in my pet home pile. And then the one on the right, that's the darker comb that you wanna see and the darker peak. Yep. I could see that when I took the pictures up there. No, let me ask this. On this particular bird, the white tip at the beak- is that a no-go or is that okay? That's okay because, all that beak covering is just the keratin and that, that is gonna be clear to yellow anyways. But you want that bone underneath to be nice and dark and black. Okay. So the beak itself is not black. It's the bone underneath this black. Yeah. And some silkies will have a pigmented beak but those are usually seen in your paints and your splashes. If they have a black spot near their beak, you'll see some of that pigment go over onto their beak, but their beak, the beaks themselves are not pigmented. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Just the bone underneath. And then this was an example of an eye that's a little bit too light in color. And I should have got that one over in the sunlight as well, but the one on the right has a nice black to dark brown eye. You don't wanna see that, like that light golden color eye in your silkies. And that was the one that had the lighter comb anyways, so he was already in my pet pile. What about the beak on the one on the right? Yep. So that one I think that was the example of the crossbeak. Oh, that's next, I think. On the right. Yeah. Oh, and that was just a repeat. Yep. There's a crossbeak. Yeah. So right color, unfortunately. And I feel like if you start to get into the line breeding enough, you're gonna start to see some of these traits come out. And I feel like it's, while it sucks to see it's good at the same point because once you remove those, then you're just cleaning up your line a little bit more, yep. But yeah I hadn't seen duck, ducto or crossbeak for two generations and then all of a sudden- Is it possible that you did- Words of these defects. Is it possible that you did a sibling mating? I did a sibling mating initially. Yep. And so then these were- Is that maybe these? Nope. So then these were, trying to think down my generation. So then their parents were like uncle to niece, if that makes sense. Yeah. Will that be okay? Sometimes you'll see defects come out in a sibling mating. But the line breeding should be fine. You should be able to line breed pretty far, but- Yeah. the sibling mating will show you things like this. Yeah. But that's one of the benefits of it. When you get your, when you get your line where where you're happy with it, when you start fine tuning things, that's where the sibling mating comes in handy because things that have been hiding for a while will pop out. Yep. And then you can clean it up a little more and move forward. So this is a picture of a bonnet crest. A lot of people like the really big overdone cr- crest. For me personally, I don't like them because like we talked about earlier, you're gonna have to do a little more maintenance on them. I like my birds to be able to see on their own. And so while she was really pretty her crust, and this little pullet was only four months old, so that crest is just gonna get way too out of control. The crest is supposed to be like a single ball kind of, and this one, you can almost identify three, like one over each eye and then her crest on the top. She's not really what I would consider a good crest. Okay. So the crest are inheritable traits, highly inheritable? Yes. Okay. Gotcha. Now, on that, so if you're, so we're looking down from the top. Yep. Should it be round? It should be. Yep. It should be round all the way around. Yep. You shouldn't be able to see like eyebrows. At 2:30- ish and almost 10 o'clock- if you're looking at it where it comes in right there at those points, that's not something- Yeah. you would want, correct? Correct. Yep. So you would just find a pair to make this width that had the crest that you did want- and wait a year and see what happens. And, and with all the ones that I had this spring, I had plenty where I was just like,"All right, we're not gonna mess with it. But if somebody had a bird that they'd been working on for a while trying to get a bigger crest, this might be a good one to add to their program, because she'll definitely add some crest for sure. Yeah. And the hen is where a lot of the features from the head and the comb and waddle, like the crest- Yeah. the comb and the waddle comes mostly from a hen because I've- Yes. I've taken a hen with a perfect comb- paired her with a rooster that had a jacked up waddle- And combs and every single thing that hatched out had a perfect comb and wattle set. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I was glad that was an easy fix. Yeah. So let's, let me ask you a couple questions about incubating for a minute. So we had a question in the group the other day what is the average size for a silky egg? Do you have a idea of what that would be? Yeah. So mine that I put in my incubator are usually about 40 to 45 grams. That's pretty good. So like a banner- Yep. Yep, exactly. And I don't I don't hatch out pulley eggs. I guess those would be a little smaller and some people do it, but yeah, I wait until they get up to- You fight the temptation. I do. It's hard. Like- What about shape? So the silky egg is gonna be a little bit more oblong than than your regular large chicken egg. But it sh- you should still be able to tell which is, which is the pointy end and which is gonna have your air cell in it. So it s- still should have that shape. Some silky eggs will get really oblong and very pointy and those I'll put in the breakfast pile. You mean torpedo? I call them torpedo eggs. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay. And not golf balls. No, we don't want golf balls. Okay. So you do 40 to 45 grams. What about if you had a monster, like a 50 gram pop out? Would you chalk that up as a double yoker? I'd probably just put that in the breakfast basket. Yep. Probably be a double yoke. Just abnormal. I can't yep. And I really, yep, just try to stick right mid, mid-level. No, that's good. I would, I was just curious like what a top side of one would be, because I know with other foul I have a lot of large foul I know that 60 to 65 grounds is the high side- on a large foul, but with the American breasts, that's ideal because you're gonna get larger chicks and better grow outs. Yeah. So- You want a nice giant chick. Yeah, and I guess- So that, that's why I was curious about the silkies. And you wanna keep them right at that mid-level too, because you don't want them to get too small, but you don't want them to get too big either. So because they will occasionally at shows they'll weigh them. And if they're, if they don't make the weight cut, then they're disqualified. What about incubation time? Still 21 days, anything special? Yeah. I, a lot of times will hatch them with my Kiki Ricky eggs and so I pull everybody off the turner at 17 days. We're gonna say, he's gonna get the giggles every time. No, I swear I'm going down a rabbit hole tonight. I'm, I may not go to bed till 2:00. I gotta figure out about these Kiki Rickis. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that and then I'm gonna have to find, I'm gonna have to find some. Oh, man. So-'Cause they're really cute. Yeah. I'll- I'll put a trio in a box and ship them down. They're, once they establish- A trail will probably fit in a box. They will. Once they establish I could probably put five in a box for you, but once they establish, you're not gonna get rid of them. It's letting mint go in your garden. It'll just take over. You'll have little babies popping up everywhere. How big are their eggs? They're, they're not as small as you would if I haven't weighed'em. I just kinda eyeball but- So they, they still pop out a pretty big egg? Yeah. Bigger than bigger- Compared to their size? You would think they would lay like a robin sized egg. It's only slightly smaller than the silky egg. Huh. And those babies could hatch out of them- That's very impressive. and they're ready to go. And that's another reason I hatch them with the silkies because they'll teach the silkies how to eat.'Cause they come out scratching and pecking and ready to eat and the silkies are just like,"I'm gonna take a nap now." And Kiki's will get them going. Okay. It's pretty cool. Yeah. All right. I'll hold all my questions for later. We have enjoyed you being- So the next podcast. Yes, exactly. We have enjoyed you being here. I put a picture up here so people can find you on Facebook because, sometimes you find the wrong farm. Okay. So this is the cover photo. And we will have you back to talk about Kiki Rikis because Kerri Collins- She's already picked up another follower. I'm on it. All right. Thank you so much. That was very, that was a lot of fun.