Mottled silkies?

[I Like Turkeys]

Thank you for all your replies! This was so helpful in narrowing down what I need to do. Which combo do you think would be best to start with? The silkie roo to the calico hens or the calico roo to my black silkies? The silkie roo has a ton of gold leakage, so much that when I saw him I thought he might be partridge. I’m not sure how this would effect the crosses?
if anyone is interested in this project I’ll continue to post updates!

Silkie rooster over calico hens would be best, in theory. The only difference between a silkie male/Cochin female cross and a Cochin male/silkie female cross would be leg color.

Pullets from the silkie male/Cochin female cross would have the correct slate legs for a silkie, but males would have white legs, and carry the gene for slate legs.

All birds from a Cochin male/silkie female cross would have white legs, the females hemizygous for the white leg gene, and the males carrying the recessive slate leg gene.

This leg color conundrum would just make it more difficult to get the right leg color going on your silkies, unless you choose to backcross to pure silkies to try and remove the white legs.

In your case, i don’t know which pairing is better. Does the paint silkie have leakage? Definitely not the first choice for a breeder, but paint is black with one copy of dominant white, so as long as you only selected black f1 chicks to keep from breeding him to the calicos, you could get past the issue of white very quickly. Maybe it’d be better to get a new black male for breeding purposes, if you’re worried about that though. Thing with leakage is males express it more adamantly, but hens who don’t show it will still carry it, so breeding out leakage has a fair bit of dependence on the male bird, unless you can guarantee the hens don’t carry the genes for leakage. Breeding in a leakage heavy male would just make it a pain to get rid of leakage.

If the paint male does have leakage, I’d just go with the calico Cochin over your black silkie hens. Do you have any photos of the black male?

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

Here is a picture of him cuddling his lady, one of my black silkie hens. His crest is wet from the rain, but it’s actually very full. I also included a pic of my paint roo. My paint roo is pure paint with no leakage that I can tell.

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

Silkie rooster over calico hens would be best, in theory. The only difference between a silkie male/Cochin female cross and a Cochin male/silkie female cross would be leg color.

Pullets from the silkie male/Cochin female cross would have the correct slate legs for a silkie, but males would have white legs, and carry the gene for slate legs.

All birds from a Cochin male/silkie female cross would have white legs, the females hemizygous for the white leg gene, and the males carrying the recessive slate leg gene.

This leg color conundrum would just make it more difficult to get the right leg color going on your silkies, unless you choose to backcross to pure silkies to try and remove the white legs.

In your case, i don’t know which pairing is better. Does the paint silkie have leakage? Definitely not the first choice for a breeder, but paint is black with one copy of dominant white, so as long as you only selected black f1 chicks to keep from breeding him to the calicos, you could get past the issue of white very quickly. Maybe it’d be better to get a new black male for breeding purposes, if you’re worried about that though. Thing with leakage is males express it more adamantly, but hens who don’t show it will still carry it, so breeding out leakage has a fair bit of dependence on the male bird, unless you can guarantee the hens don’t carry the genes for leakage. Breeding in a leakage heavy male would just make it a pain to get rid of leakage.

If the paint male does have leakage, I’d just go with the calico Cochin over your black silkie hens. Do you have any photos of the black male?

Here I got better pictures of the paint roo. His name is Joe dirt.

 

[Slothinc]

I learned a lot from this thread! I just hatched some shipped eggs that are (project pen) mottled silkies and also Mille silkies. I’m super excited to see how the my end up as adults. Thanks for posting the pics you found of mottled silkies. And the genetics behind them is fascinating. @Timbers Happy Hens have you started your project yet?

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

I learned a lot from this thread! I just hatched some shipped eggs that are (project pen) mottled silkies and also Mille silkies. I’m super excited to see how the my end up as adults. Thanks for posting the pics you found of mottled silkies. And the genetics behind them is fascinating. @Timbers Happy Hens have you started your project yet?

I am currently waiting on my stock to mature to start. Planning on putting my paint rooster over my black satin hen, black mottled Cochin hen and Mille fluer Cochin hen. I’m also picking up chocolate silkies today to incorporate! But I do expect to have the F1 babies hatching by mid to late spring. I’m so glad someone was able to appreciate this thread. Would die to see photos of your mottled and Mille babies!!

 

[Slothinc]

@Timbers Happy Hens that sounds like a great place to start!! Are you trying to get more black silkies/satins out of the paint/black pairing to then cross to the mottled babies?

I will happily post pics!! There are 3 NN and those three are out of a mottled x mottled satin frizzle pen, so I’m excited to see how they feather out. Then there are 3 from a mille x black satin pen. And one other that was supposed to have been from black/paint pen but it looks to me like mottled so I think it was mislabeled. I am not sure what Mille silkies are supposed to look like, but all of the babies look to me like they are black with white on them in various places.

Would love to hear what you think! I just got them for fun but was shocked by how adorable they are, and now of course want to keep them all hahaha.
(One had splayed legs - it hatched way after everyone else, but it has a brace on and is hobbling around great now)

 

[Slothinc]

Sorry pics didn’t attach, here they are.

If you have any insight as to what the Mille chicks may look like as adults, let me know. Right now they seem very similar to the mottled chicks. The last chick is out the black/paint pen (mislabeled) and then the 3 NN are mottled pen, and the other 3 are Mille pen.

 

[Slothinc]

Just took other pics of the splay leg Mille pen chick who is doing a lot better now. I just googled Mille chicks and it seems like if these were going to be Mille then they would have brown heads? So I am thinking possibly I have all mottled chicks (which is actually what I prefer anyways )

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

Just took other pics of the splay leg Mille pen chick who is doing a lot better now. I just googled Mille chicks and it seems like if these were going to be Mille then they would have brown heads? So I am thinking possibly I have all mottled chicks (which is actually what I prefer anyways )

Oh be still my heart yes they do all look mottled, i breed Millie Cochins
and their babies are varying shades of brown with stripes. So I’d assume something similar. I also prefer mottled, it’s a cleaner look IMHO

And the goal with crossing the black satin to the paint silkie is to eventually get paint satins. I’ll attach a photo. Which I would eventually incorporate in my mottled project.

* not my photo, just for reference*

 

[Slothinc]

@Timbers Happy Hens that makes perfect sense! I believe it’s possible to get paint satins right off the bat with that pairing, as approx 50% of the babies should be paint and approx 50% black. Then depending on if your hen carries two copies of satin, all the babies would be satin, or if she only carries one copy of the satin gene then 1/2 of her babies could be satin. That’s so fun, I’m excited for your project!