black skin.....

[mastiffsinky]

I read last year something about breeding a silkie roo to a non silkie hen, and it must have been on my old computer because I can not find it now.

I thought it said that doing this cross, all the female chicks will have black skin and the males won't. Is this true or do all of the chicks have black skin?

Katie

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

I dont think thats true...

 

[lurky]

I hatched 3 chicks this year. The rooster is a blue splash silkie and the hen is a bantam ameraucana. There were 2 girls and one boy and all 3 had black skin and silkie toes. Today I got my first egg from them and it was green

.

 

[Kev]

Yes and no.

The expression of black skin is also dependent on whether another gene, Id is present or not. Id prevents skin pigmentation, so if Id is present, the black skin either won't show on the skin or just barely or weakly.

It's the Id gene that is sex linked. So if a Silkie is mated with a hen that has Id, then that will be a sex linked mating. No Id, then all chicks will have the dark skin.

However, there is another problem. The black skin is also affected by many other genes such as feather color so the skin can be anything from skin that looks pink at first but you can see some darkness around vent, under the wing etc. or have "sooty" skin(pale gray). This possibly could make the chicks not so reliably sexing due to the *visual* variation.

 

[horsechick]

wow....