Porcelain Project

[ashtree]

I hatched a test batch of eggs from a full brother sister Partridge match. They are both out of a recessive white female and my Catdance bred Paint father. . Two out of five chicks were self blue cream in color. In the test pen I also had a couple Bantam Rhode Island Red hens. The resulting chick was not what I expected. T This chick is a barney (half silkie half BRIR.) It's wing feathers are coming in self blue. Even the shaft of the feather! My feeling is that my Catdance Paint is passing the lavender gene. The full brother to sister mating of the partridge progeny of my Paint paired up and brought it out. But how did the lavender gene pass to the BRIR?

Oh I can't wait to watch those chicks grow up! They are lovely. All the self blue I've hatched have had racing stripes. But I'm really loving yours. I can just imagine the excitement watching those hatch from a partridge pairing. My porcelain cockerel (silkie from Sheri Minkher eggs) isn't showing interest in the ladies but I can hardly wait until he does. I only have 2 porcelain hens but I also have a partridge and lavender for him. Right now I have another batch of sheri eggs in the incubator (16 made it to lockdown) and Im really hoping for porcelain and partridge. I wish I had some answers for your mysterious BRIR chick. Could it be a really diluted splash?

 

[MumsyIII]

Hi ashtree! Even though I've raised hundreds of silkie chicks over the years, it still thrills me when each chick hatches. The excitement of possibilities is always fresh.

These F2 chicks are certainly new to me by way of their day old down. I keep journals on each hatch and toe punch and then band all. If I didn't, my memory would fail and that would be bad for figuring out who came from who and when.

Silkie chicks from smooth feathered crosses are impossible to tell at day old. It isn't until they are around two to three weeks old when the primary wing feathers emerge that I can spot them. Silkie feathers are recessive. So first crosses show up in the smooth feathers. When they are crossed back to silkie the smooth feathers are gone but weird things in the feet and comb sometimes show up. By the time these chicks are F4 and F5 they are almost entirely silkie in all traits. If these pale chicks produce self blue or blue cream color in future test hatches, I will be thrilled!

My Self Blue and Blue Cream cockerels didn't show sexual interest until they were eight months old. They are still learning how to mate correctly. One out of three eggs has been infertile. By next season they will know what their job is.

When are your sixteen eggs due? I also have sixteen ready to hatch this week. From two self blue pens and one blue cream pen.

 

[ashtree]

Yea I've heard you mention how extensively you record keep. I often think about it when I manage to write something (anything) in my hatching journal!

The eggs in my incubator are on day 19 starting tonight. so I should have some babies soon. I've hatched out lots from my own girls but now have no rooster (last 1 attacked my daughter and me) so I'm waiting on my cockerel to get going! I've had some boys show interest at 4-5 months so I'm hoping he's one of those guys! I'm really hoping I get a good back up boy in this hatch.

 

[MumsyIII]

My sixteen eggs are on day nineteen too! Hah! Let the window watching soon commence.

I have Porcelain pen A, Lavender pen A, and Lavender pen B separated in trays. Hopefully they won't hatch and jump ship into another tray. I had that happen before.

Today I put zips on the first batch. Green zips go on chicks with bad feet so I can sell them easily and not put them in breeder grow out pens by accident. I get a lot of chicks with slightly fused forth and fifth toes. I need to hatch a lot of chicks this year to have a good choice for next years pens.

 

[MumsyIII]

First Blue Cream chick from my F2 pen A! Beautiful baby! I'm so happy! Such an even blend of soft blue and buff even as a few hours old chick.

 

[ashtree]

First Blue Cream chick from my F2 pen A! Beautiful baby! I'm so happy! Such an even blend of soft blue and buff even as a few hours old chick.

Oh she's perfectly lovely! I have a blue cream egg zipping now! I can hardly stand it!!!!

 

[MumsyIII]

Final hatch for the Blue Cream F2 first batch was 100% from six eggs set to live chicks. They are beautiful healthy babies with a nice uniformity of down color and type. Some are a tad darker buff and some are lighter. I'm thrilled and waiting for the Lavender pen A to finish so I can disinfect the bator and go again with another batch.





Little Blues, Blue Creams, and Self Blues hatching together.

 

[MumsyIII]

Group picture of all six Blue Cream (porcelain) day old sweet bits.

 

[ashtree]

Group picture of all six Blue Cream (porcelain) day old sweet bits.

Oh they are so beautiful!!! Whatever you're doing you're doing right

I hatched 2 blue cream. My hatch actually wasn't very great, 9/16 shipped eggs that went into lockdown. But Im very happy with the chicks

 

[MumsyIII]

Thanks ashtree.

I feel like you do. If I got one or two live chicks, I'm happy. Hatching shipping eggs is the toughest thing to do. Each live baby is a win.

This project is a hard one for me personally because I live on an island and getting quality silkies is very difficult and expensive. My flock has been closed for two years now. I have to use the gene pool in my own barn.

The Blue Cream experiment only had a glimmer of a hope to get off the ground. I started this using one blue cream male and a partridge female with blue under color. I can see where I need to go with the next phase with F3. I will need to get the following generations nearer a self blue under color/base/color.


It seems that the trick for me will be hatching enough numbers to choose future breeders from using the birds in my flock. I should be able to keep going for another five years before I need to bring in new blood. Five more generations will put me at F8. I should have a good representative of worthy Blue Cream silkies by then. I spend a lot of time looking at images online of the big name breeders and their project birds and study them carefully.

There are a lot of pictures online of adult Blue Cream porcelain silkies but they range all over the place in degree of dilution. There are even fewer pictures online of day old chicks. Even the pictures of birds winning in shows around the country have little in common with each other with regards to color. Eventually I'll have to show the best of my breeding efforts or give some of my birds away to someone who can do it for me.



Sleepy babies.