And On That Farm There Were Some Silkies

An interview with Silkie Specialist John McDonald

- Ian Wileman

I first met John in the late 90s. I was recommended to go and speak to him by a mutual friend, so I visited his corn mill for a seed mix I needed. It was around ten years later that our paths would again cross - when another mutual friend took me to visit John at his cottage to enquire about hatching eggs for the incubators I used in school - and once again John was able to sort things out for me. I left his place with a tray full of Brahma bantam eggs. The last of the birds hatched from those eggs passed away here about twelve months ago and John and I have become good friends during the interim years.

John is well-known to anyone keeping Silkies throughout the UK, but he sees himself more as a custodian of his breed rather than a showman. In fact, there have been many periods of time throughout John’s lifetime that he has not shown at all, and he is probably best known in his home county of Lancashire for being the longstanding president of Southport and Ormskirk Bantam Society. John has kept a number of breeds of poultry from all sections including turkeys, waterfowl, hard and soft feather.

I asked John a string of twenty questions in an attempt to glean from him some of the incredible wealth of knowledge he has accumulated over a lifetime of poultry keeping…

John, how long have you been keeping Silkies?

“I got my first poultry in the form of laying hens at the age of four in 1947. I kept birds from this point and purchased my first Silkies from Jim Martindale in 1959. Shortly after this I began working on a poultry farm, working with both poultry and pigs.”

How long have you kept your current strain?