black skin genetics

[1Chick Magnet]

does anyone have any knowledge about the outcome of a cross between a silkie and a white skinned chicken? I was reading about breeding showgirls on the american silkie bantam site. it says that black skin is sex linked and will appear only on females if crossed with a turken. would the same be true if a silkie is crossed with other light skinned breeds as well?

 

[AHappychick]

I dont think so you will get mixed some will have the dark skin trait some wont, but it is noit the same gene that makes a sex link.

 

[Kev]

Black skin is NOT sex linked(think I know where you read that, tried to inform them but..).

There is another gene that IS sex linked, called Id.. it represses pigmentation in the skin, and it will repress black skin pigment too. If Id is not present then it does not matter and will show up in both sexes in a cross.

However black skin is rather funny. For some reason it is much easier to get dark skinned females than males, even if Id is not present. It is even a problem in some Silkie lines. A common problem is males that start out dark skinned but when they are mature, their skin turns red. No idea what that is, seems to be gender- related (not sex linked) similar to gender related feathering on roosters vs hens.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

It's not one gene that makes a sex-link; there are a number of them. However the most commonly used is the Silver/Gold gene. But others can be used instead.

The sex chromosomes in chickens are Z and W. The W chromosome is shorter than the Z chromosome, and therefore does not have space for a copy of some of the genes that are on W. A female chicken is ZW, a male chicken is ZZ.

For a chick to be a male, the mother must provide a Z chromosome; likewise, for a chick to be female, she must provide a W chromosome. The sex-linked genes are those located on the Z chromosome, but not on the W. For these genes, hens carry only one copy of the gene whereas roosters carry two.

To create a sex-linked cross, the hen must have a dominant allele of a sex-linked gene while the male has a recessive allele. The offspring will all receive the recessive form from the father. The cockerels will receive the dominant form from their mother--which will override the recessive allele received from the mother. The pullets will not receive a gene from their mother, thus the gene received from their father will show, regardless of the fact that it is recessive.

 

[TXmom]

Wow, awesome information. Of course, I will have to read it about 5 more times to "get" it, but I will definitely do that.

I was also wondering about the black skin genetics because my frizzle has black skin, and was told on my thread that she may be a "sizzle" because of that black skin.

 

[1Chick Magnet]

thankyou for the response. I will also have to read it a bunch of times before I understand it. If I breed a silkie male to a light skinned female, will I get both black and light skinned chicks? will there be more females with dark or will there be some black some white some black and white? any idea what color the meat would be?

 

[Brown Farmer]

Please check out http://home.planet.nl/~stev7596/australa.htm
DEVELOPING A LARGE DARK SKINNED MEAT BIRD BY CROSSING WITH THE SILKIE By Bill Stanhope