First, you need to know that it is so hard to sex Silkies that you can only buy them as straight-line (unsexed) baby chicks, second it's worth pointing out that Silkies are so devoid of secondary sex characteristics that a given chicken can be up to a year old before you really know what you've got, third, I have to say I've wondered about Courtney for a long time - lack of any real nesting behavior, the hostility shown to her by the two roosters, and lately how her neck feathers appeared to be growing into hackles - fine, fluffy hackles to be sure, but hackles nontheless. And then yesterday she started crowing. Courtney is a roo. This, I'm sure, is only a surprise to me. Courtney has known what he is all along. So, given our new understanding of this bird, Courtney the person and I had a discussion and concluded that one of my new Silkie chicks will be named Courtney and that this bird will from this point forward be named Snowball - a name some people have used for him all along. Snowball is still a cute, sweet, social bird. He is kid-friendly & you can pick him up and pet him & carry him around & he'll continue to be part of my flock - but we will all now have a better understanding of who he really is.
