Mottled Silkies?...Calling out for Silkie Experts.

[Teresaann24]

Is this possible? I have the chance to get my hands on some nice mottled Cochins. I would love to pair them with an extra silkie roo I have and see what I get. If I wanted to start a project to make some nice Mottled silkies what color of silkie should I breed the Mottled cochins with? Would the OS from these be consider F1? Then how should I go about picking the best ones to breed F2? and what should I breed them back to? Another silkie or what color? Thanks to all those Gene experts who answer!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

F1s will be H+/h Mo+/mo. You will not have mottling, and you will not have silkie feathering. Breed together, then select the F2 chicks that inherit (and show) both mottling and silkie feathers. At this point, you will probably need to breed back to high quality black silkie to improve type. In this F3 cross, you will lose mottling, but retain silkie feathering (assumingf you use only silkied F2s. Breed the F3's together and select the ones who are mottled. Every time you breed to a bird who doesn't carry a needed recessive gene, it will take two generations (including that outcross) to bring it back.

Mottled sounds easier than it ends up being.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Her smooth feathered birds don't have Silkie characteristics at all and they are the 15th generation!! Look at the Picts. Well let me rephrase....the feathers don't. They have black skin, five toes, walnut comb, dark eyes. Mine has that too. But to say they aren't Sizzles because they have smooth feathers or were from a Cochin/Silkie cross is not accurate and confusing.

Serious sizzle breeders are calling smooth feathered birds that have all the characteristics except for frizzling "smooth sizzles." Basically smooth sizzles and frizzled sizzles. Sizzles never have silkied feathering; that makes them a silkie.

 

[V Comb]

Mietsie from Israel, she sadly passed away recently.

 

[onthespot]

Not neccessarily "improve" by inbreeding. Instead use the word "intensify" when you are inbreeding. Good or bad, it will set a trait and make it harder to breed out.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
I definitely recommend against using splash, and really against using blue as a splash mottled is very messy looking. In your calculations, you have neglected to consider that both silkie and mottle are recessive. You cannot get mottled or silkied birds from the first cross.

First generation you lose both silkie and mottling, but all offspring have a hidden copy of each.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Learning it is like eating an elephant--one bite at a time, lol. Take it slow, and it really is not that hard. Learn terminology bit by bit, then one gene, then a second, and so forth. THe more you learn, the easier it becomes to learn a bit that is new.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Well, there are already a few out there (a VERY few), so you might try to get your hands on birds already under development. It has taken me quite a few years to get mottled that are back to type and silkied.

 

[cochin123]

Quote:
pics ???

 

[ShysCreations]

Saw a pic in the Silkies & Silkie Bantams book by Sigrid Van Dort.....a European breeder