Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

[blessedchick]

Ahha, the laying culprit....

Don't you just love it when that happens? She's beautiful!

 

[Adoravachick]

Pretty girl! What made you think boy??

Thank you! She had that very leggy look like a boy. I just checked vents last week while I was doing mite checks (No Mites! YAY!!) and that bird's vent didn't look like it does now. My other Splash...who I am also thinking boy, (leggy) had some "egg white" like fluid coming out of the vent, but it doesn't have that swollen look to it. So, we'll see what happens. Its a good learning experience, I can look back at pics to study body types though.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: There are very few "always" or "never" rules in breeding. The makeup and needs of your own flock, as well as your resources (can be $ or source of birds or other factors) plays as much a role in your choices as anything else. If the bird has type you need, then by all means breed from it. Just watch the offspring and select the best; preferably those that inherited the type, but not the double nail.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Great pictures on the toes!

One of the "boys" in the cockerel pen laid at egg today!!!!! I don't know who, but I'll do a vent check tonight when I go to the barn. Alot of guilty little faces watching me check the nest boxes.

That's awesome! Too often it is a crow from the hens' house that is the mistake!

 

[peepblessed]

Thank you! She had that very leggy look like a boy. I just checked vents last week while I was doing mite checks (No Mites! YAY!!) and that bird's vent didn't look like it does now. My other Splash...who I am also thinking boy, (leggy) had some "egg white" like fluid coming out of the vent, but it doesn't have that swollen look to it. So, we'll see what happens. Its a good learning experience, I can look back at pics to study body types though.

Yeah, that leggy look throws me too.... The really active girls throw me too. I have a hen that's at least as active as a roo and all her babies are that way.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Ahha, the laying culprit....

She's pretty! I would not have thought boy, either. From this angle, the crest and lack of comb look pretty girlie to me!

Well, that's a super nice surprise to have one less cockerel!

There are very few "always" or "never" rules in breeding. The makeup and needs of your own flock, as well as your resources (can be $ or source of birds or other factors) plays as much a role in your choices as anything else. If the bird has type you need, then by all means breed from it. Just watch the offspring and select the best; preferably those that inherited the type, but not the double nail.

That will be my plan! And yeah, the type is what is over riding that nail for me.

Hopefully this won't pass on to all of her offspring. It will be interesting to see what happens. She's not laying yet, but hoping soon! And anyway, I don't want to have chicks when it's 13 degrees outside and the possibility of a power outage because of weather. She also has really good foot feathering, and I'm lacking that in some of my birds, so hoping for a lot of things from this girl. Anyway, I have a boy with excellent toes I'm going to pair her with. We shall see!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Sonoran, I'm not meaning to put you on the spot but I'm under the impression you are somewhat of a "professional" Silkie breeder with buckets of experience. If you don't mind, I would like to tap your brain and experience. I have a couple of questions.

1. Do you help if you see one struggling to hatch?
2. How hard do you cull for things like cross-beak and extra toenails?

I know you've already told us you don't use extra toenails in your breeding program but I'm just trying to understand how fussy I need to be. Do you sell the cross-beaks and extra toes/toenails to pet homes or do you cull?

 

[Me & Jack]

I have to disagree. Everything else being equal, I'd take the bird with the wrong number of toes over one with a double toenail (regardless of whether it is a lobster claw or parallel pair from the same nailbed. Not a bird with 4 or 9 or 11 toes (or 4+6) can't be shown, but can be a breeder.

On what genetic grounds are you disagreeing, Suze? Fused toes are not distinctly different from polydactyl in general, and are known as "duplicate polydactyly" -- which is dominant and can result in duplicates of toes, nails, and even entire feet. Thus, having a bird with a fused toe is no easier or harder to breed out than a bird with 9 or 11 toes.

Note: Duplicate polydactyly should not be confused with syndactyly, which can appear similar (it is a fusing of two or more digits by the skin and sometimes a fusing of the bones). I am referring to toes in which there are not two fused sets of phalanges but only duplication at the top phalange or with a nail.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Sonoran, I'm not meaning to put you on the spot but I'm under the impression you are somewhat of a "professional" Silkie breeder with buckets of experience. If you don't mind, I would like to tap your brain and experience. I have a couple of questions.

1. Do you help if you see one struggling to hatch?
2. How hard do you cull for things like cross-beak and extra toenails?

I know you've already told us you don't use extra toenails in your breeding program but I'm just trying to understand how fussy I need to be. Do you sell the cross-beaks and extra toes/toenails to pet homes or do you cull?

Since the ones I see strggling to hatch tend to be incubator babies, yes, I help. I generally figure that it was my fault that the conditions were not as perfect as they would have been under a hen. Sometimes they make it and sometimes they do not. I've never had a "weak" chick remain weak into adulthood; it either did not survive to adulthood, or it became strong.
.
My culling is either to pet homes, the feed store or my pest control (free range bug eaters) flock. I don't kill birds for any reason.

I've never used cross beak birds for breeding. At one point toes and toenails were not something that would keep me from breeding the bird if their other traits were good. Overall my flock is better than what it was, and I can find equally good birds that don't have the fault. The exception is project birds. If a bird has faults, but has something to contribute to the project that other birds don't have, then I might use it.

For example, I have a chocolate that has colouring to die for. But his type is far more polish than silkie, and he is not silkie feathered. I will probably breed him to a really typey black and maybe one of the better chocolates. From those chicks I hope the hens will improve the type and that the cock will improve the colouring. So in some ways this will be a step back in type, but a step forward in colouring. Now I already have some very nice chocolates, but having birds at different points of progress is okay. I just love the super shiny dark head/hackle/saddle with a HUGE amount of green sheen! He just glistens in the sun.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
Very helpful. Thank you!!