What do feathers do? Do you know how amazing feathers are?

[@cautiousdissolute5780]

I never get tired of learning about these amazing animals

[@chickensinmygarden]

Me too! 🙂

[@littlelight2826]

Existence of this channel simply makes me happiest 😇

[@chickensinmygarden]

Oh, thank you so much! Have a lovely day 😊

[@ellegates]

I so appreciate this video, thanks! You are my chicken college!

[@chickensinmygarden]

Wow! Thanks for that. I wasn't sure whether anyone else would be interested 🙂

[@olga00209]

Thank you very much for such an interesting and informative video!🙌 I always admire my girls' plumage and take extra care of them when they moult🐔😊

[@chickensinmygarden]

Yes indeed, they are quite tender when moulting. I often notice a real change in their personality at that time.

[@melodykelly8810]

wow I had no idea..thank you..

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you 🙂 Have a great day

[@vickyannpaintingwithoils]

That was fun and interesting!

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you. I wasn't sure how interesting it would be to other people

[@vickyannpaintingwithoils]

@@chickensinmygarden As a kid I took phones and other things apart and sometimes could put them back together. I love the ins and outs of things, and I love the way you cover them.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Phones! Wow, that's advanced! I just dissected dead birds and possums on the back lawn

[@vickyannpaintingwithoils]

@@chickensinmygarden That should surprise me! haha. We didn't have possums and dead birds to disect, but had plenty of fun tying string to cicadas and seeing how they fly, and catching lizards and watching them release their tails to get away. I guess I never lost that fascination in how and why things work the way they do. I am certainly glad you didn't either! ;)

[@chickensinmygarden]

As long as we are learning, we are living 🙂

[@hattiedraper1061]

Thank you. Your videos are always so very, very interesting.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much! It's great to hear that 🙂

[@kd1841]

I enjoyed the video. I have purebred Silkies and must say that the wing feathers are pennaceous. It is just difficult to see them if their wings are folded. My girls cannot fly as far or as high as my Jersey giant but they frequently fly out of the coop if the girl in front of them is too slow on the ramp. 😂🤣❤️ It’s especially hilarious when my tiniest ginger colored silkie aggressively runs and flies towards the others when she is broody and angry after I get her out of the coop. 😅 They do handle rain poorly. We nearly lost one hen when she sought shelter under an old dog cage but got her extra toe hung up on the metal grate. I noticed her missing when closing the coop for the night. My daughter finally found her. She was tilted over with her head hanging down some. She nearly suffocated. She was wet and cold and had crackling sounds in her lungs. We brought her inside, slowing warmed her up with a gentle blow drying, and held her upright until she was stable and able to walk, about 2 hrs. Thankfully she survived and her breathing sounded normal within about 24 hrs. Hado is my sweetest and most beautiful hen, just not the smartest girl. 😅 We do trim her giant crown occasionally so she can see better.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Oh, what a terrifying story! I'm so glad it ended well. I didn't know that Silkies could have pennaceous wing feathers, thank you. Your comment made me check the breed standards, which mention either a "lack of hard feathering" or "the wings ragged" so clearly those wing feathers can have some barbules. Maybe tail feathers too, especially on the roosters?

[@kd1841]

@@chickensinmygarden Yes, some of the streamer tail feathers on the blue/black silky roosters are also pennaceous. I never have seen a white silky rooster in person. My 2 blue black girls father had some. He is small but mighty and bit me when I got too close to his ladies when I visited him one time. Hi name is Blueberry. 🤣😂

[@ruthlongridge]

Fascinatin stuff!

[@chickensinmygarden]

I know - amazing eh! 😊

[@gaetiekn]

So interesting! I am learning so much about chickens through your video, thank you for making them! 😊👏🙏 I have a hypothesis about hen's plumage: I noticed that some roosters tend to breed more frequently certains hens and to defend them much more than others, getting almost obsess with them, even though these girls aren't particularly fond of this and try to escape their fate 😅. Knowing that chicken can see a larger range of colours than we do, I am wondering if a hen in good health reflect more certain colours in wavelength that aren't visible to us but are very flashy for the roosters?

[@chickensinmygarden]

I have seen the same - a rooster often seems to pick a favourite hen. Maybe it is indeed something about the way she looks. Chickens see more ultraviolet than we do. Maybe an experiment looking at hens with an ultraviolet light could prove interesting 🙂

[@pseudopetrus]

I find it amazing that genetics has such an impact on feather quality. I am trying to reduce the fluff in some of my Partridge Chantecler lines. As you know, the pencilings do not show well on fluffy soft feathers. I have one line that is so fluffy that I have to trim the feathers on the hens backsides or their eggs have poor fertility. But each generation, I see improvement.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Genetics is fascinating, isn't it! In some respects it's easy to understand but the complications of multiple genes influencing each other blows my mind. Your project sounds wonderful 🙂

[@pseudopetrus]

@@chickensinmygarden Sigrid Van Dort writes in one of her books that hard feathers are dominant to soft feathers, it seems to be that way... but bit by bit! It takes some generations with most traits to get where you want to be.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you for mentioning her name. It made me follow up and I found she has a Facebook page 😄

[@pseudopetrus]

@@chickensinmygarden I have two of her books, she does a great job explaining chicken genetics.

[@KatarzynaM-yu3jp]

Najlepszy program o kuracj, jaki widziałam ❤

[@chickensinmygarden]

Dziękuję

[@leahnichol6665]

Your video reminded me of my mother teachings me to make a pen with a feather. I had no idea of how to tell a wing feather from a tail feather. Now I want to find feathers and see which would be nicer to write with. Chicken genetics seem very complicated. Thank you for the details and efforts you put into these lovely videos. I am informed and enjoy them all. ❤

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much for your lovely comment. I make them all for people like you 🙂

[@anya3027]

awesome video, thank you. 👍

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much 🙂

[@anya3027]

@@chickensinmygarden i knew some of it before but you made it a lot more interesting and comprehensive.. a feature we got used to in your videos 👍♥️ do you use a wireless microphone when recording?

[@chickensinmygarden]

Hah hah! I will let you into a secret. I usually use a wired microphone but it's a hassle to set up and I tend to get tangled in the wire. This time I knew there was only a small amount of footage "to camera" so I filmed it without any microphone and then dubbed my voice over the top! Now that you know, can you tell?

[@anya3027]

@@chickensinmygarden acutely, this way i asked, there is a small audio sync latency (or whatever it called :) ) and i don't remember it happened in your videos before.. this does not matter. the technical aspects have no real impact on the quality of your videos, the presentation is very fun and interesting and thats what really matters...

[@chickensinmygarden]

@anya3027 well spotted! It's the first time I've tried it 🙂

[@faltio69]

Good video once again! 😊

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much 🙂

[@rickhaile2190]

You can stuff pillows with them!!! Ha! Ha!

[@chickensinmygarden]

First remove the chickens. The pillow is softer that way 😀