Rough Sex or Bird Cancer ?

My white Silkie has started her 3rd egg-hatching cycle.

I noticed she has some raw looking flesh on her comb.



Because her 2 boyfriends like to stand on her back and grab her comb in their beak, I think I'm just seeing the result of a recent egg-fertilizing session.

She's about 2 years 9 months old. She weighs about a 1/2 pound.

She is the most fearless of all the birds. She has a habit of charging larger animals.


Last summer she was scalped by something. Cut off all her tail feathers, a slash about 2/3 down her back that looked like someone slashed her with a butcher knife. Fortunately just raking across her backbone and not paralyzing her.

I think she might have charged a mountain lion, then turned around and run for her life just as something was slashing her with one single sharp claw.


Anyway, she's strong, so if this is just chicken foreplay damage, I think she'll be OK.

On the other hand I know birds don't always live that long; her sister died at about age 1.

Hope it's just rough sex.


She's a tough bird.

Some like it rough LOL

I'm keeping her inside. Or, really, she's keeping herself inside on her pile of eggs.

Her son & lover sits on the fence outside the bedroom (she laid those eggs under a piece of cardboard in a corner of a bedroom) crowing.

If I let her outdoors, he will try to jump on her, and will grab her already damaged comb in his beak.

I am beginning to think that the practice of turning eggs is something humans do. I have an electric incubator, but I didn't buy the egg turner part - and I haven't hatched any eggs.

I think if I was sitting on a pile of eggs for a week+, I'd change my position every hour or 2 also. I hear her changing her position, and I hear eggs moving, but I don't think she is methodically turning every single egg.

Shes laying eggs on zip-lock baggie...??


thats a new one,was tought they love to sit on some straw as some kind of nest..

Dog Star said:

Shes laying eggs on zip-lock baggie...??

thats a new one,was tought they love to sit on some straw as some kind of nest..

Click to expand...

She chose that spot & started laying her eggs there. It happened to be a cardboard box with stuff in it.

Then she laid further claim to the spot and started sitting on the eggs.

I don't even know what stuff, I don't want to disturb her by looking too close.

This is the part where the eggs hatch - any day - and a new ritual begins.

Until the chicks can fly, they are stuck with ground-roosting for their night spot, which is not good for their survival rate.

So every night the back door flies open & the mother marches in with her chicks. She will probably get the bathtub in a spare bathroom.

Her previous litters were 2 chicks each.

They do like straw for their nest. But sometimes they just make a big pile of eggs with no straw in sight.

Give her to the dog. lol

Any cock will do is the problem.