How to make cukoo silkies

I just ubscribed to this thread. I would like to know the answer to that question too.

Hopefully this will help 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sager:)silkies 

do u breed a silkie to a cukoo maran and then keep breeding back to the silkie and if the colour starts to fade u breed back to the cukoo maran or the first chicks from the project 

I don't know how the Cuckoo was created in Silkies but Marans would be a terrible idea, sorry. But, your conecpt is generally correct except barring as a gene is nicely dominant, so down the line even in the second generation you can start breeding the same generation to each other, or even breed future generations back to, say, the second. The first is too close a call back to the introduced breed though, and just takes you way too many steps back just for color. Silkies have a lot of traits that are a requirement for the breed, and are easy to breed out when not paying good attention.

Mine came from barred rocks as an oops hatch several years ago (no longer have them).  If I were doing a deliberate attempt, best bet would be to cross barred or cuckoo cochin to barred, cuckoo or black polish, then cross the offspring to a black silkie.  IMO, in a silkie feathered bird, you cannot tell the difference between barred and cuckoo--even a perfectly barred feather would look cuckoo due to the nature of silkie feathers.

However, you can find decent cuckoo silkies that are already several generations into development, so that is really the best choice if you are looking for better quality sooner.

how hard would it be to get rid of the cochin comb?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonoran Silkies 

Mine came from barred rocks as an oops hatch several years ago (no longer have them).  If I were doing a deliberate attempt, best bet would be to cross barred or cuckoo cochin to barred, cuckoo or black polish, then cross the offspring to a black silkie.  IMO, in a silkie feathered bird, you cannot tell the difference between barred and cuckoo--even a perfectly barred feather would look cuckoo due to the nature of silkie feathers.

 

However, you can find decent cuckoo silkies that are already several generations into development, so that is really the best choice if you are looking for better quality sooner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bator Babies 

how hard would it be to get rid of the cochin comb?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonoran Silkies 

Mine came from barred rocks as an oops hatch several years ago (no longer have them).  If I were doing a deliberate attempt, best bet would be to cross barred or cuckoo cochin to barred, cuckoo or black polish, then cross the offspring to a black silkie.  IMO, in a silkie feathered bird, you cannot tell the difference between barred and cuckoo--even a perfectly barred feather would look cuckoo due to the nature of silkie feathers.

 

However, you can find decent cuckoo silkies that are already several generations into development, so that is really the best choice if you are looking for better quality sooner.

 

Pretty easy.  Single comb is recessive (technically hypostatic) to other comb genes.  So unless the silkie only carries one copy of rose or pea comb genes, the offspring should have walnut combs.  Now the polish will add in the V comb gene, so you will want to breed away from that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sager:)silkies 

do u breed a silkie to a cukoo maran and then keep breeding back to the silkie and if the colour starts to fade u breed back to the cukoo maran or the first chicks from the project 

Barring does not fade with time(unlike Self Buff or Bl Blue) heck it seem that heterozygous sex link barring will give you darker birds as oppose to homozygous birds(B/B)..........

But that´s not realy your problem here.. your problem will be birds with white skin, instead of birds with black skin. you see sex link barring(B) is tightly linked to sex link Dermal Inhibitor Id, and what makes silkies to have black skin is Fibromelanotic(Fm) Fm needs id+(wild type counterpart of Id, id+ is recessive and Id is dominant)... your first cross will be Id/id+ males and Id/- Females(if you used a cuckoo/barred roo over a silkie hen) or Id/id+ roosters and id+ none barred hens(if you use a cuckoo/barred hen mated to a silkie roo)...

if I had access to cuckoo silkies I would get them, instead of trying to breed them again from scratch, its realy hard you would need to breed in the hundreds to get  recombinants(id+ B)

just get them from somebody else

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bator Babies 

how hard would it be to get rid of the cochin comb?

 

 

it would be like childs play compared to getting id+/id+ B/  Recombinants...