Breeding silkie + 2 other breeds. What to expect?

[Cloverr39]

Hello!
I will be breeding a silkie rooster to a bantam brahma and a frizzle bantam cochin. The 2 non-silkie girls live with my silkies and I figured that since I'm probably gonna accidentally mix their eggs in with the silkie hatching eggs, I might aswell purposely hatch some chicks from them.
I hatched 3 pullets from the bantam brahma and my previous silkie roo and surprisingly there was a pretty big demand for the girls.

From my understanding, my Isabel colored bantam brahma's chicks will be smooth feathered. Carrying 1 copy of lavender and 1 silked feather gene (and possibly something else that the rooster might be hiding).
The Frizzle bantam cochin's chicks should be half smooth, half frizzled. Carrying silked feather gene (and possibly something else that the parents might be hiding).
I'm also guessing some chicks will be crested and bearded.
Anything else that I might’ve forgotten?

Another question:
I recently learned that silkie cockerel + light skinned hen results in sex-linked chicks. Females having dark skin and males - light skin. So far seems to be accurate, though as I mentioned before, all 3 of my chicks were pullets. All dark skinned.
Would breeding my frizzle cochin to a silkie rooster also result in sex-linked chicks? I mean both brahmas and cochins have light skin, right? That would make it so much easier and I could sort out the cockerels at hatch.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

What colors are your Silkie and the Cochin hen? What you have down sounds correct, but knowing the plumage color genes at play will help me double-check. Most likely, all of your chicks will have crests smaller than their father's, and depending on if he has one or two copies of the beard gene, either half or all of the offspring will be bearded. The only other thing I can think of is polydactyly, the fifth toe gene, which can be weird; crossing a bird with five toes to a bird with four toes can make a spectrum of chicks with five toes on one or both feet, or on neither sometimes.

Yes, Cochins have light skin, so you should get skin color sexlinks from her as well. Be aware that some plumage color genetics can affect this; as an example, I did the exact same cross, Silkie male to Cochin female, but my Silkie is White from one copy of dominant white, a gene that often causes the color of the skin to be faded. I missexed most of my pullets from that cross because they inherited dominant white and had pale skin with just the slightest tinge of gray at hatch. I didn't notice that tinge and assumed they were all light skinned males until they were a few weeks old and their leg color darkened to slate.

Slight edit for clarity!​

 

[MysteryChicken]

For Brahma Hen X Silkie rooster, that is a Sex-linked crossing with skin color.
You should expect something like this. Minus the Silver Columbian color.

 

[Cloverr39]

What colors are your Silkie and the Cochin hen? What you have down sounds correct, but knowing the plumage color genes at play will help me double-check.

My silkie is a dominant white. I don't know if he has 1 or 2 copies of it because dom. white doesn't cover gold tones. My previous rooster (father of the silkie/brahma pullets) was black by the way.

The cochin is black with a bit of gold on the chest. The gold is better visible in the 2nd photo.

The only other thing I can think of is polydactyly, the fifth toe gene, which can be weird; crossing a bird with five toes to a bird with four toes can make a spectrum of chicks with five toes on one or both feet, or on neither sometimes.

Right, I totally forgot. I do quite like the polydactyl gene. I've had birds with 4, 5 and even 6 toes. My silkie/brahma girls all had 5 toes on each foot.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Crossing him to either hen should roughly answer whether he has one copy or two; if any of the chicks are not white, then he has only one copy of the gene. If they're all white, depending on how many you hatch, then odds are good that he's got two copies. There's always that tiny chance that they all happened to inherit the gene, but the more you hatch, the slimmer those odds are.

Since your male has dominant white, keep in mind what I said about skin color fading if you try to sex any of the white offspring by their skin color! There can be the tiniest of a tinge of gray in the females, but it's so hard to detect, especially in person. These are two of the crosses I hatched, a male in the first picture and a female in the second:

And the same birds a few weeks later (their Cochin mother is silkied, so they have silkied feathering; this is not typical of offspring from a Silkie crossed to a non-silkied Cochin, for the record!)

Right, I totally forgot. I do quite like the polydactyl gene. I've had birds with 4, 5 and even 6 toes. My silkie/brahma girls all had 5 toes on each foot.

Yeah the genetics there are weird. I've gotten a couple birds with five toes on one foot and four on the other! No 6-toed babies yet, though!

 

[Cloverr39]

Crossing him to either hen should roughly answer whether he has one copy or two; if any of the chicks are not white, then he has only one copy of the gene. If they're all white, depending on how many you hatch, then odds are good that he's got two copies. There's always that tiny chance that they all happened to inherit the gene, but the more you hatch, the slimmer those odds are.

Since your male has dominant white, keep in mind what I said about skin color fading if you try to sex any of the white offspring by their skin color! There can be the tiniest of a tinge of gray in the females, but it's so hard to detect, especially in person. These are two of the crosses I hatched, a male in the first picture and a female in the second:

View attachment 3260674
View attachment 3260675

And the same birds a few weeks later (their Cochin mother is silkied, so they have silkied feathering; this is not typical of offspring from a Silkie crossed to a non-silkied Cochin, for the record!)

View attachment 3260682View attachment 3260681





Yeah the genetics there are weird. I've gotten a couple birds with five toes on one foot and four on the other! No 6-toed babies yet, though!

Thanks a lot!
By the way, what do you use to put around the chick's legs? Is it something made specifically for chicks or is it something else? I've been trying to find some kind of colorful bands that fit on newborn chicks, but no luck so far. I gave up with my last batch of chciks and just memorized their differences by the time they were a week old. Most of them had obvious differences, besides 2 that I could only tell apart by how many pink toes they have.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The bands visible in those pictures are called EZ Ring elastic leg bands, which I LOVE for chicks, but I've found that they don't work super great for Cochin and Silkie chicks because they're kind of grippy and grab the fluff on their legs when you try to remove them. If you're okay with just cutting them off rather than pulling them off to reuse them, or if you're super careful about pulling them off, they're great and fairly inexpensive, though I don't know about availability in other countries outside of the U.S. I have several different sizes to switch out as chicks grow.

Another option that I like if you can't get the EZ Rings is those little rubber bands for making friendship bracelets. They come in a ton of colors, are pretty cheap, stretchy enough to come off over leg feathering without pulling it, and they're easy to adjust for size by doubling them over or knotting them. I've used them as wing bands instead of leg bands, too, once the chicks have enough of their wing feathers grown in to prevent them from slipping off.

 

[Cloverr39]

The bands visible in those pictures are called EZ Ring elastic leg bands, which I LOVE for chicks, but I've found that they don't work super great for Cochin and Silkie chicks because they're kind of grippy and grab the fluff on their legs when you try to remove them. If you're okay with just cutting them off rather than pulling them off to reuse them, or if you're super careful about pulling them off, they're great and fairly inexpensive, though I don't know about availability in other countries outside of the U.S. I have several different sizes to switch out as chicks grow.

Another option that I like if you can't get the EZ Rings is those little rubber bands for making friendship bracelets. They come in a ton of colors, are pretty cheap, stretchy enough to come off over leg feathering without pulling it, and they're easy to adjust for size by doubling them over or knotting them. I've used them as wing bands instead of leg bands, too, once the chicks have enough of their wing feathers grown in to prevent them from slipping off.

Thank you. I think I might even have some of those little rubber bands laying around the house somewhere.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Crossing him to either hen should roughly answer whether he has one copy or two; if any of the chicks are not white, then he has only one copy of the gene. If they're all white, depending on how many you hatch, then odds are good that he's got two copies. There's always that tiny chance that they all happened to inherit the gene, but the more you hatch, the slimmer those odds are.

Since your male has dominant white, keep in mind what I said about skin color fading if you try to sex any of the white offspring by their skin color! There can be the tiniest of a tinge of gray in the females, but it's so hard to detect, especially in person. These are two of the crosses I hatched, a male in the first picture and a female in the second:

View attachment 3260674
View attachment 3260675

And the same birds a few weeks later (their Cochin mother is silkied, so they have silkied feathering; this is not typical of offspring from a Silkie crossed to a non-silkied Cochin, for the record!)

View attachment 3260682View attachment 3260681





Yeah the genetics there are weird. I've gotten a couple birds with five toes on one foot and four on the other! No 6-toed babies yet, though!

Yes, polydactly gene is a funky one. A Silkie mix chick that hatched out last year had 6 toes on each foot.
One of the silkies we have has 6 toes on one foot, & 5 on the other.

Just kept back a Silkie cockerel that has funky color leakage, & 12 toes.

 

[Cloverr39]

One of the silkies we have has 6 toes on one foot, & 5 on the other.

I had a silkie cockerel with the same thing hatch this year.

Just kept back a Silkie cockerel that has funky color leakage, & 12 toes.

He sounds really interesting. Do you have any photos of him?