Silkies - They’re simply SPECTACULAR!

Trying to get a head-count on silkie lovers...

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Sorry for the bad photos. These little guys hate having their picture taken. I was wondering what you all thought these colors were? The first one is a bit greyer in person and now she has red coming in on her wings. How will this result in her offspring if I bred her to a blue rooster or a recessive white rooster? Thanks so much everyone!
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Sorry for the bad photos. These little guys hate having their picture taken. I was wondering what you all thought these colors were? The first one is a bit greyer in person and now she has red coming in on her wings. How will this result in her offspring if I bred her to a blue rooster or a recessive white rooster? Thanks so much everyone!
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They are adorable! :D

Hmmm what you might get is kind of a tricky question. I think they both resemble grays/silver partridge (gray vs silver partridge is pretty much the same color with slight differences in wing patterning, since only gray is recognized in silkies most silver partridges get called gray anyway). The coloring on grays can vary by a lot from light to dark so I'd say the first chick is a very light gray and the second is more of a medium shade. The lighter chick sounds like it has autosomal red of some sort as well, this often indicates a male when found on the wings though not always.

I'm going to refer to gray as silver partridge from here on out though as it makes things a bit simpler to explain I think.

It's kind of hard to say what you would get when crossing them as I'm not exactly sure what they are. If a diluter like blue is involved in the lighter ones color it would affect the outcome of what you might get as well.

If there is no dilution from blue on them then you would probably get blue and black possibly with some leakage or partial patterning when crossing them with a blue rooster. The red might also pass on and show up in the offspring. There is a chance you might get more silver partridge (or even regular partridge which is gold based) if your blue happens to be carrying any partridge genetics that are hidden. Gold vs silver partridge offspring would depend on his ground color though I think blues are usually bred to be silver based so you might be more likely to get more silver partridge if he carries partridge.

When crossing with a recessive white there is a good chance you would get partridge offspring as a lot of recessive white have partridge underneath the white. I think a lot of recessive whites are also gold based so my guess is that you would likely get regular gold based partridge females and probably golden partridge male offspring (which looks more silver than gold but carries both). Again the red might come through though it'll probably be less noticeable in the gold females. All offspring would carry a recessive white gene so when bred back to a recessive white or another chicken with one copy of recessive white you would have the chance to get more recessive whites.

If there is blue diluting either you would have that in the mix making blue/splash a possibility and blue/splash partridge.

I'm using the term partridge very loosely here as in the silkie world most things slightly resembling partridge get called partridge. Some would simply call the improper partridges mix colors. I don't know enough about proper partridge to tell the proper ones apart from the improper ones myself.

That was the complicated answer....the simpler answer is you'd likely be getting mixed colors of sorts.
 
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They are adorable! :D

Hmmm what you might get is kind of a tricky question. I think they both resemble grays/silver partridge (gray vs silver partridge is pretty much the same color with slight differences in wing patterning, since only gray is recognized in silkies most silver partridges get called gray anyway). The coloring on grays can vary by a lot from light to dark so I'd say the first chick is a very light gray and the second is more of a medium shade. The lighter chick sounds like it has autosomal red of some sort as well, this often indicates a male when found on the wings though not always.

It's kind of hard to say what you would get when crossing them as I'm not exactly sure what they are. If a diluter like blue is involved in the lighter ones color it would affect the outcome of what you might get as well.

If there is no dilution from blue on them then you would probably get blue and black possibly with some leakage or partial patterning when crossing them with a blue rooster. The red might also pass on and show up in the offspring. There is a chance you might get more silver partridge (or even regular partridge which is gold based) if your blue happens to be carrying any partridge genetics that are hidden. Gold vs silver partridge offspring would depend on his ground color though I think blues are usually bred to be silver based so you might be more likely to get more silver partridge if he carries partridge.

When crossing with a recessive white there is a good chance you would get partridge offspring as a lot of recessive white have partridge underneath the white. I think a lot of recessive whites are also gold based so my guess is that you would likely get regular gold based partridge females and probably golden partridge male offspring (which looks more silver than gold but carries both). Again the red might come through though it'll probably be less noticeable in the gold females. All offspring would carry a recessive white gene so when bred back to a recessive white or another chicken with one copy of recessive white you would have the chance to get more recessive whites.

If there is blue diluting either you would have that in the mix making blue/splash a possibility and blue/splash partridge.

I'm using the term partridge very loosely here as in the silkie world most things slightly resembling partridge get called partridge. Some would simply call the improper partridges mix colors. I don't know enough about proper partridge to tell the proper ones apart from the improper ones myself.

That was the complicated answer....the simpler answer is you'd likely be getting mixed colors of sorts.
You really are the silkie queen! I wish I could know a fraction of what you do! I know the light grey one is a girl for sure. I wish I could pick your brain all day! lol
 
You really are the silkie queen! I wish I could know a fraction of what you do! I know the light grey one is a girl for sure. I wish I could pick your brain all day! lol

Aww thank you! I'm really just a novice myself that has spent a lot of time reading through silkie genetics groups and threads. :lol:

Take what I say with a grain of salt....I could definitely be wrong as I'm still learning too! :)
 
Sorry for the bad photos. These little guys hate having their picture taken. I was wondering what you all thought these colors were? The first one is a bit greyer in person and now she has red coming in on her wings. How will this result in her offspring if I bred her to a blue rooster or a recessive white rooster? Thanks so much everyone!
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End of a toilet brush?? ;)
 

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