Need some general advice on silkie breeding and your thoughts on my birds

[Cloverr39]

I first got silkies in summer 2021. I fell in love with the breed so much that I've decided I'm going to start breeding them. I've noticed most silkies in my country (with some exceptions and good breeders) are very off looking. They have smaller crests, very poor foot feathering (it's very rare to find ones that have a feathered middle toe), they're not as fluffy and overall look more scrawny. I'm trying to work my way twards improving the silkies in my area and maybe eventually reaching show quality. It's hard to find colors that you want (especially with good everything else).

So in short, I'm trying to breed for better quality silkies. With beards and I prefer shorter legs on roosters.

I kept 1 black rooster out of my batch of chicks (all roos) from last summer. From him I hatched all cockerels and 1 pullet. The single pullet from him I plan on keeping for next year, but probably not longer than that because of her foot issues (I'll explain further down the post). Also I lost that original rooster to a hawk a couple months ago .

These are my current hens that I hatched chicks from this year (I also hatched shipped eggs). They all had almost no foot feathers when I got them in spring. Thankfully they've grown some recently:

Luna (personal fav)

Misty

Sarah

Sarah is still a sunbleached brownish color instead of black. I think her molt is late because she was broody while the other 2 were molting.

Misty carries recessive white and I suspect Sarah might also carry it (she's gotten white tips on her new crest feathers). Unsure about Luna.

The chicks I plan on keeping
Pullets:

Rosie (Luna's daughter)
  black

Problems:
• Hatched with 2 bent toes;
• Very poor leg feathers;
• I don't know much about wings but they don't look amazing either.

Things I like:
• Pretty big crest;
• Bearded;
• friendly.

Might carry 1 copy of recessive white because her father definitely carried it.

Loyd
Lavender (self blue)

Problems:
• non bearded;
• poor leg feathering;
• beak is slightly crooked to one side;
•smaller crest.

Things I like:
•color
•Pretty soft wing feathers (I think that was good)

Smokey
Cuckoo (or blue cuckoo)
Hopefully pullet

Problems:
•Pink crest;
•not great feathering on legs;
•not exactly the color I want to go for.

Things I like:
•crest size
•cute, feminine posture
•if she's blue cuckoo I could breed in some blue;
•blue earlobes.

Cockerel:

Cloud
Dominant white over something red

Problems:
•not a standard color

Things I like:
•Very nice feet (even middle toe);
•bright blue earlobes;
•Pretty big crest;
•bearded;
•has dominant white (for paint offspring);
•great personality (docile, friendly, shy);
•dark comb and wattles.
•dark eyes

I'm super happy with Cloud. I would really regret not keeping him.

I would like some advice on what to focus on when breeding these guys. What should I change/work on? I'm trying to work with what I've got here. I'm also trying to work my way twards paint and BBS.

Based on what should I chose the keepers next summer?

 

[Amer]

Okay, so the birds that stand out to me are Cloud and Smokey. What country are you from?
The color faults aren’t too hard to deal with. You can breed towards solid white, paint, and black without leakage. Also, cuckoo makes it hard for black skin to express, but since you will breed away from the cuckoo coloring, you will get dark skinned birds in no time. Just be sure to test breed males in the following generations so they are homozygous for fibromelanism. Also, when breeding her (use a black male) eliminate the cockerels at hatch. That will be easy since they will be barred. They will have white spots on their heads. Apart from having the undesirable barring, they won’t have black skin when they grow up, so they are useless for breeding.
Don’t use Rosie or Loyd in breeding. The crooked beak and toes are too difficult to breed out in subsequent generations.
Sarah and Misty aren’t as good either, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it.
Luna: she appears to be pretty good. Find a black, blue, or splash male to breed with her. The best you can get.

 

[Cloverr39]

Okay, so the birds that stand out to me are Cloud and Smokey. What country are you from?
The color faults aren’t too hard to deal with. You can breed towards solid white, paint, and black without leakage. Also, cuckoo makes it hard for black skin to express, but since you will breed away from the cuckoo coloring, you will get dark skinned birds in no time. Just be sure to test breed males in the following generations so they are homozygous for fibromelanism. Also, when breeding her (use a black male) eliminate the cockerels at hatch. That will be easy since they will be barred. They will have white spots on their heads. Apart from having the undesirable barring, they won’t have black skin when they grow up, so they are useless for breeding.
Don’t use Rosie or Loyd in breeding. The crooked beak and toes are too difficult to breed out in subsequent generations.
Sarah and Misty aren’t as good either, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it.
Luna: she appears to be pretty good. Find a black, blue, or splash male to breed with her. The best you can get.

I'm from Latvia. The thing is, I live in the city and only have enough space for 1 rooster at a time. I'm a bit bummed that I can't keep Rosie as a breeder, but I might still keep her as a pet. No idea how I'd tell her eggs apart from the others. I also have a super sweet bantam cochin frizzle pullet that is staying as a pet. Again, I don't know how I will tell their eggs apart when it will be time for incubation. I can easily tell which eggs belong to my one bantam brahma.

I looked around and found 4 people that I could get some hatching eggs from next spring (because no one ever sells pullets, let alone good pullets). The photos are numbered.

#1 is a mixed color pen. It's very hard to tell the quality of their silkies from the video they sent me.

#2 is a mixed color pen, some silkies come from a different country (the pretty ones) and they're mixed together with some local silkies. The pretty pullets are the best quality out of all options, but the offspring that they sell are often not that good.

#3 flock of white silkies. They look okay. Offspring often hatches paint. Looks like maybe some dominant and recessive whites together.

#4 this is the only photo of their silkies I could find. They only have 2 hens, but this cockerel that they were selling looks pretty decent. I will ask for pictures of the hens if I end up going with this option.

 

[Cloverr39]

Alright, so I've had some time to think and this is what I've come up with:

I'm going to sell Rosie, Loyd and another white pullet with a single comb in pairs with my extra cockerels. Thankfully I can make some pairs that aren't related to each other.

I'm going to keep Smokey if she's a pullet (10 weeks old, so still not sure) and Cloud along with my 3 hens Misty, Sarah and Luna.

Next spring (2023) I will hatch eggs from my own silkies, as well as buy some that might result in dominant white or paint offspring (probably from breeder #3 or #4). Then if I get some paint pullets I'll keep them and get a black rooster the year that they've grown up (2024).
That way in 2024 I'll get some paints from black + paint and I'll get to breed Smokey to a black rooster.

Those are my current plans. I'm going to post an add for my silkie pairs later today. Hopefully someone will be interested because my cockerels are having a really hard time getting along. I have 3 extra 15-week-olds and 3 extra 10-week-olds.

 

[3KillerBs]

I know almost nothing about Silkies specifically but read the thread because I'm learning about how to choose good breeders in general for my Blue Australorps and figured I could learn from it.

My very basic understanding of the principles are that characteristics should be considered in roughly this order:

1. Vigor/Health/Vibrancy -- whatever name you want to put on that quality of soundness that is the opposite of delicacy, fragility, or weakness. Knowing nothing of good type for Silkies, Cloud just *looks* to me like a good bird in general.
2. Physical Defects -- cull and don't breed any bird who has any physical defect that you're not 100% certain came from an injury after having formerly exhibited soundness.
3. Good type for the breed, understanding that no bird is perfect.
4. Quality of color.

More experienced breeders can correctly if I have those priorities wrong. Temperament figures in there somewhere too, but I don't know where to put it.

Though, as with Silkies, I know nothing about Modern Games, I found this article highly informative when I was choosing among my 5 Blue Australorp cockerels. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/breeding-modern-game-bantams-by-jeff-duguay-ph-d.77130/

 

[nicalandia]

I am on the same boat. Here where I live very few SQ Silky Stock. But I have seen exceptional looking Pekins. So I will try to bring some Pekin blood, at the very least those Satins will look very good

 

[Cloverr39]

Alright, so I managed to find a breeder that has some good quality blacks. He just got them. He also has buff, but I'm not interested in buff. His hatching eggs are a bit more on the expensive side, but I think it's worth it.

 

[Jpduguay]

I first got silkies in summer 2021. I fell in love with the breed so much that I've decided I'm going to start breeding them. I've noticed most silkies in my country (with some exceptions and good breeders) are very off looking. They have smaller crests, very poor foot feathering (it's very rare to find ones that have a feathered middle toe), they're not as fluffy and overall look more scrawny. I'm trying to work my way twards improving the silkies in my area and maybe eventually reaching show quality. It's hard to find colors that you want (especially with good everything else).

So in short, I'm trying to breed for better quality silkies. With beards and I prefer shorter legs on roosters.

I kept 1 black rooster out of my batch of chicks (all roos) from last summer. From him I hatched all cockerels and 1 pullet. The single pullet from him I plan on keeping for next year, but probably not longer than that because of her foot issues (I'll explain further down the post). Also I lost that original rooster to a hawk a couple months ago .

These are my current hens that I hatched chicks from this year (I also hatched shipped eggs). They all had almost no foot feathers when I got them in spring. Thankfully they've grown some recently:

Luna (personal fav)
View attachment 3223706

Misty
View attachment 3223707

Sarah
View attachment 3223708
Sarah is still a sunbleached brownish color instead of black. I think her molt is late because she was broody while the other 2 were molting.

Misty carries recessive white and I suspect Sarah might also carry it (she's gotten white tips on her new crest feathers). Unsure about Luna.

The chicks I plan on keeping
Pullets:

Rosie (Luna's daughter)
  blackView attachment 3223709View attachment 3223710
Problems:
• Hatched with 2 bent toes;
• Very poor leg feathers;
• I don't know much about wings but they don't look amazing either.

Things I like:
• Pretty big crest;
• Bearded;
• friendly.

Might carry 1 copy of recessive white because her father definitely carried it.

Loyd
Lavender (self blue)
View attachment 3223711
View attachment 3223712View attachment 3223713
Problems:
• non bearded;
• poor leg feathering;
• beak is slightly crooked to one side;
•smaller crest.

Things I like:
•color
•Pretty soft wing feathers (I think that was good)

Smokey
Cuckoo (or blue cuckoo)
Hopefully pullet
View attachment 3223715View attachment 3223716View attachment 3223717
Problems:
•Pink crest;
•not great feathering on legs;
•not exactly the color I want to go for.

Things I like:
•crest size
•cute, feminine posture
•if she's blue cuckoo I could breed in some blue;
•blue earlobes.

Cockerel:

Cloud
Dominant white over something red
View attachment 3223718View attachment 3223719View attachment 3223720View attachment 3223721
Problems:
•not a standard color

Things I like:
•Very nice feet (even middle toe);
•bright blue earlobes;
•Pretty big crest;
•bearded;
•has dominant white (for paint offspring);
•great personality (docile, friendly, shy);
•dark comb and wattles.
•dark eyes

I'm super happy with Cloud. I would really regret not keeping him.

I would like some advice on what to focus on when breeding these guys. What should I change/work on? I'm trying to work with what I've got here. I'm also trying to work my way twards paint and BBS.

Based on what should I chose the keepers next summer?

I just published a book on exhibition Silkies including information on breeding strategies. It’s available at Cluckerbooks.com

 

[Jpduguay]

This book will help. Cluckerbooks.com

 

[Cloverr39]

Hi, I'm back again. I sold Rosie and Loyd and I kept Cloud and Smoky. Smoky is a pullet! Sarah just finished molting (it was funny because she lost half her crest and looked like a hedgehog for a little while). I actually now really like how she looks. I'm definitely hatching some chicks from her. She's so fluffy. I think she's the best out of my 3 black hens. Luna would probably be second. Smoky has also gotten quite pretty. It's a pain trying to take pictures of her because she's so flighty. And it's so hard to capture her actual body type. I'll probably rehome Misty next year after I've decided wich new pullets to keep. Misty's a bit too scrawny looking with a small crest and no beard. Their crests are a little crusty from the weather right now.

Sarah after her molt:

Luna:

Smoky:

Cloud: