Breeding Setups for Specific Colours - Silkies/Pekins

Sprfrk

Hatching
Sep 12, 2019
6
2
9
Hiya looking for advice regarding the following. I have both Silkies and Pekins for the below scenarios, however this case I'll talk about silkies only.

I have several coloured 'groups' of silkies being a young male roo and a few pullets for each colour - Splash, Black, Blue, White and some silver partridge pullets, currently in one large 12m x 12m (40ftx40ft) enclosure on my section with coop, all under 6mos old. I am looking at separating these guys out in order to breed - NOT for show purposes but general good quality breeding for pets etc. My chooks are from showline breeders so am fairly confident in their genes.

Idea 1 - separate the 4 colours out completely to their own 12m x 3m runs with smaller coops. This would be Splash, Black, Blue and White with 3 silver partridge. This would be ideal for colour purposes, keeping males separate and premium coop space, however very time consuming and finance heavy!

Idea 2 - separate the group into two colours each. Two large coops (they are suitable for 8x 'normal chicken' sized coops with three nesting pens for reference) and larger 12m x 6m runs to share. Thinking, Splash and Blue together, and Black and white with s/p together. This would be a lot easier on my budget and time, and tbh the one i'm leaning towards. Obviously though then the predicted colours would be a mix bag and would have two roos together.

....Would it be ok having 2 roosters with approx 4-5 pullets each, in one shared area?
....What might a white roo and s/p hen produce?
.....WHat might a white and black mating produce?

TIA ;-D
 
Last edited:
I thought I had replied to this earlier but I think i posted a link and don't have permission to do that yet. If you search KippenJungle chicken colour calculator i think that will help, but it looks like the two crosses you asked about will just give you black only as the F1 as the other colours will be recessive and hidden. I think splash/blue/black would be ok in together as they are similar part of the same colour family, but i think the white and silver partridge would want to be separate. That being said I am only new and it may be that the splash/blue/blacks in together will be an issue with colour intensity. It probably depends on the individual roosters but i suspect they would fight if in together with ladies, except in special circumstances (I have seen a few posters on here have roos together, usually one is junior and one senior so you may have one roo doing all the fertilisation). Hopefully someone who knows what they are talking about will give you better info!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom