Poultry
Silkie
B tier
Silkie is a distinctive Chinese breed with silk-like fluffy plumage, black or dark blue skin and bones, five toes, a crest, and a walnut or cushion comb. Relatively small and docile, Silkies are famed as broody mothers and for dark-skinned meat used in East Asian medicinal and gourmet soups rather than as a Western-style roaster. Culinary tradition centres on black-bone chicken soup (often called silky fowl or wu gu ji), believed to be nourishing and richly flavoured. The meat is dark, slightly gelatinous, and deeply savoury when simmered; eggs are small cream or tinted. Specialty butchers and Asian markets supply Silkie carcasses for broths and braises.
Also known as: Silkie / Chinese black-bone chicken, Wu gu ji, Silkie soup chicken, Silkie
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
Grading systems
Grades are placed along a shared scale so systems can be compared side by side.
History
Chinese texts and trade accounts described fluffy, black-skinned fowl valued for food and tonic preparations.
Marco Polo’s reports of fur-like chicken plumage in Asia raised European awareness of Silkie-type birds.
Continued Chinese breeding fixed the silk feather, dark skin, and five-toed traits of modern Silkies.
Silkies entered Western poultry standards as an ornamental and specialty breed.
British and European clubs refined colour varieties while Asian cuisine retained black-bone culinary use.
Global demand for Silkie soup chickens and pet/exhibition birds sustained commercial niche production.