Splash/ Blue Silkie Thread

[Lynzi777]

I'm using a blue roo, but still getting light chicks. They look white at hatch. I had a beautiful splash hen with great color. Sadly she had to be put down due to wry neck caused by a peck of a aggressive broody. I tried everything to get her over it with no sucess. That broody is now raising her chick though and it looks promising.

The eggs that just hatched are from the light hen. Two white and a blue at hatch. 4 more to hatch on the 24th. I candled last night and they all look good.

Well the chicks usually ARE light when they hatch. Are they growing up and still staying very lightly marked? A breeder once told me that sometimes with splash, the markings will come in twice as nice after they go thru their first molt. Which is why it's sometimes hard to decide who to keep before they go thru that first molt. My sizzle roo was very lightly marked when I first got him, and now he's got a lot more markings. Before and After:

Here he is as a chick earlier this spring:


and he is now:


He's still on the lighter side, but you can at least tell he is a splash. This is my splash girl that I just call white because she barely has any markings but I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and had to have her.

 

[LisaLouHoo]

Just had 3 chicks hatch out of my splash/blue pair.

Hen

She is really light. Is there any way to breed to darken the splash coloring.

I've read that breeding splash x splash will give really light splash. Probably what you're doing, breeding splash to blue will eventually get back to darker splash. I have a splash roo and a black hen....who I thought was a dark blue when I got her. They produced about 10 blues this year and then I figured out she must be black, lol. Now I've kept 2 of the baby blue pullets and will breed back to dad and hopefully get some splashes, which is what I wanted to begin with.

 

[Lynzi777]

I've read that breeding splash x splash will give really light splash. Probably what you're doing, breeding splash to blue will eventually get back to darker splash. I have a splash roo and a black hen....who I thought was a dark blue when I got her. They produced about 10 blues this year and then I figured out she must be black, lol. Now I've kept 2 of the baby blue pullets and will breed back to dad and hopefully get some splashes, which is what I wanted to begin with.

It says right in the context that this bird was from their splash/blue pair. So if they've been breeding splash to blue and have been getting really lightly colored splashes how to you work on getting more markings if you're already working a blue?

 

[K Epp]

I added pictures to my previous post...

Since its changed pages I will add them again.

Mom


Dad


Chick from earlier hatch.





This one is getting lots of splash markings as it feathers out, but they are on the light base.


They are in a separate breeding coop. These pictures were taken last winter when I had them in the main bantam house. I give the eggs to who ever is broody. this chick hatched with d'uccle, and frizzle eggs. under a Sizzle hen.

 

[K Epp]

Well the chicks usually ARE light when they hatch. Are they growing up and still staying very lightly marked? A breeder once told me that sometimes with splash, the markings will come in twice as nice after they go thru their first molt. Which is why it's sometimes hard to decide who to keep before they go thru that first molt. My sizzle roo was very lightly marked when I first got him, and now he's got a lot more markings. Before and After:

Here he is as a chick earlier this spring:


and he is now:


He's still on the lighter side, but you can at least tell he is a splash. This is my splash girl that I just call white because she barely has any markings but I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and had to have her.

I love him. I'm also working on Sizzle/Frizzle. I'm getting frizzle in all colors, but my Sizzle are turning out mostly white and I have one black. I have one blue frizzle silkie that I will put with a blue roo nest spring hopefully getting a splash.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

To darken your splash, as stated before, don't breed splash to splash, they will wash out. I know that the person who asked is breeding splash to blue, you'll want to continue on with that. When your chicks hatch, grow them out and keep only the darkest splashes. Splash to blue can still produce very diluted splashes, its just how it goes sometimes. You'll just have to be very selective about who you choose to use for breeding your splash birds. I have 2 splash hens currently, one is really diluted (she has excellent type, which is why I've kept her, not too mention that I don't hatch a ton, so I don't get an overload of splash AND this is the first year in a long time that I've had a blue roo breeding to even get splash. I've had a black rooster for a while now) the other is very dark (there are pics of them earlier in this thread). They are both bred to a blue rooster. I've only got 2 splash chicks from them currently, and I'm waiting for them to grow out to figure out what to do with them, but I plan to only keep those with dark markings.

All of my splash chicks start out very white, and it takes them a long time to develop color. But, eventually it does show up. I always have hung onto my splash for a few months before I decide whether or not I'm happy with their color. Keep breeding to blue, be selective with your keepers and it shouldn't take you long at all to get the heavy markings back. I hope that helps!

 

[K Epp]

Thank you. I'm planning on keeping all this round of chicks. If all the eggs hatch I should have 13 total. I hot a hood look st the chick I thought was blue. It looks like it has a lot of yellow on it so maybe it will be the bluer based splash I'm looking for. Fingers crossed.

 

[GulfCoastChick]

They are adorable. Do you miss them?

Due to a move we had to give our ten white silkies to a local farm and we miss them terribly. We went back twice to visit but always left heavy-hearted. We plan on getting more silkies within the next six months. These came from a local farmer but we would not purchase from him anymore. He doesn't care for animals in any nice way and crowds them in a make-shift crate.

I live in Florida and would love to know who to order silkies from.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

GulfCoastChick- you're very fortunate to live in the same state as Sunshine Silkies and Bobbie Porto, both of them have wonderful Silkies! And, I feel your pain about the move. We moved from Va to Tn about a year ago. Before the move, I had more than 20 Silkies. I had to whittle down to just 5. My husband insisted I get rid of all of them, but I just couldn't part with those last 5. So, we moved them more than 500 miles to our new house. I wouldn't change a thing, the thought of not having them still makes me sad, and I didn't even have to leave them behind!

 

[Nikki816]

My 3 light blue and 1 light splash babies. They are 11, 10, 9 and 6 days old.