LynnaePB
Free Ranging
Oh you guys! I had to share…my broody broody Cochins managed to incubate one of their eggs up until 5 days till hatch so after they abandoned the one egg that hadn’t quit I popped the lonely egg in an incubator and sort of forgot about it and didn’t really think it would hatch. Monday I looked up during a meeting and a teeny black baby was laying in the incubator! SO…now I have a teeny bantam Cochin chick that’s too small to add to the brooder with the silkies…and it’s SO lonely! It cries anytime I leave and always want to sleep on me. It is so adorable but I feel very sad for her…so I asked my local Facebook poultry friends if anyone had a super young bantam chick. Well it just happens that my last vacation my chicken sitter asked if she could hatch some of the eggs I let her have while watching them….and they too just hatched! She messaged me tonight and offered to let me have a couple of them and sent pics—and they have 5 toes!! I think they are Sia babies!
Look at how cute they are!!
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The lightest one looks to have only 4 toes but I’m very curious what it will feather out as…Sia is splash…but the only active rooster is Bruno so I’m not sure how his genes pair up! Splash only happens with the blue gene though right? This is Bruno…
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I’m silly excited about getting my own chicks backwe may do a swap with a black Silkie chick! Inky and Blinky might just be inky soon…haha.
Aww how exciting about the babies!
And yeah you would need two chickens carrying blue to get any splash so I'd guess the little splash looking baby probably did have a different dad. Bruno sure is a cutie! Mottling being recessive I'm guessing his babies will probably not show much or any white mottling as adults. Him with a splash girl I would guess will give blue babies who may be more likely to develop some gold or silver leakage (especially the males) in their hackles and possibly other areas as well.As far as satins go your Bruno x Sia babies could be the start of a satin project and would be considered F1. F1's are technically just mixed breeds but breeding back to silkies for enough generations will give satin offspring that are very near 100% silkie genetically but keep the smooth feathering (50% will keep the smooth feathering when bred back to a silkie since regular feathering is dominant). I think in just 6 generations of breeding the project offspring back to silkies you'd have birds that are over 98% silkie genetically. You'd select for birds each generation that are the most silkie like other than feather type and breed these back to full silkies and eventually you'll have birds that breed true to silkie standards other than feather type (along with getting 50% silkies out of them which since they will be breeding true to standard as well can be considered full silkies). That is basically what a satin is, a project breed (non recognized) that is a non silkie feathered bird that breeds true to silkie standards other than feather type.
It would be simpler to say that a satin is just a silkie without silkie feathering (and that is indeed what they are from a genetic standpoint). But because silkies must have silkie feathering to be eligible to be shown as silkies satins have been designated as another project breed by those working on them.
You'll find there is a lot of differing opinions on satins and a lot of misinformation out there as it is still a relatively new thing. As it is now it is somewhat doubtful satins will be able to be officially recognized as their own breed as they have only 1 non silkie trait where to be eligible to be considered another breed by current standards they'd need more.
That is great Perdy is filling in more like a little pullet! I've definitely had my share of little pullets that acted like little cockerels as youngsters.
