Reprinted from the ABA Information Bank
Bantam Culture Course Series
In viewing the problem of poor feathering in growing Bantams, many breeders incline to the view that it is exclusively an inherited fault. If this were wholly true, how soon the trouble could be rectified by selecting breeding stock which gave quick-feathering progeny.
Take a look at the next Silkie which comes your way and to note the ragged look about the ends of the wing feathers. Then look through your cockerels to see which of them has identical ragged wing feathers. Pay particular attention to the top secondary feathers, near the body.
Breeding males with these ragged feathers are the most likely sires of poor feathering progeny. It is a definite sign of freak feathering, a fault which seems to have developed in many of the strains of the large fowl Rhode Island Red.
Any breeder can insist upon breeding males which have well formed wing feathers, broad and firm in the end secondaries. The faulty hen or pullet is easily noted, even without handling the back and body feathers. These are soft and silky, almost like the soft pointed back feathers of a young cockerel and identical to those seen on the silkie female.
