Sizzle

Breed Details:

Sizzles are a wonderful cross between the Frizzled Cochin and Silkie. A Sizzle will have regular feathers but all the other characteristics of a Silkie. Those of us who are working or creating a recognized breed are attempting to breed our Sizzles to the appropriate color standard for Silkies. There is a Yahoo group where those of us working on developing the breed can compare notes and experience. Like any other breed Sizzles will come in smooth and frizzled varieties. Breeding for frizzles is somewhat complicated due to the fact the two copies of the frizzle gene (both parents are frizzled) will produce a bird with severe feathering problems. In order to avoid this factor, you should breed a frizzled bird to a smooth bird. With this type of breeding, only 50% of the offspring will actually have frizzled feathers. The smooth feathered offspring from this breeding are very important to your breeding program, however. To further complicate this whole matter, those of us working on the breed are using Silkies back on the Sizzle periodically to improve the basic type. This now throws into the mix the additional issues of offspring with Silkie and Frizzled feathers as well. Regular feathering is dominant to the Silkie feathering so you are now dealing with several anomalies with both dominant and ressive gene combinations. Genetics is not a subject that I find easy to understand and even harder to explain. In short, Sizzle breeding at this time can produce both smooth and frizzle feathered birds that may have silkie feathers or regular feathers interchangeably. An offspring that is both frizzled and has Silkie feathers is a frizzled Silkie and of little use in futher breeding. I find these delightful little curly balls of fluff to be gentle and as with any bird that is even slightly related to a silkie, very prone to broodiness.