Breeding Black Silkie Roo + Barred Rock Banty Hen - Questions

[woodsygal]

I'm trying to get this right but have seen some contradicting info. Hope someone can help!
Black Roo + Barred Rock Hen (Also have one that is Black Silkie roo + Silver Plymouth Rock)

1. Does this combo make a silkied cuckoo? Or is it the 2nd generation becomes the desired silkied cuckoo?
2. Will the males look more like silkies while the females look more like barred rocks?
3. If any white is on their head, is it male? Subsequently- solid black head would be female?
4.Please tell me if I have these correct. I'm very unsure of 2 of them. ID'd by colors which coincide with their leg bands.

Thanks soooo much

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Cute chicks!!
Black Silkie (male) x Barred Rock (female) will make sex-linked chicks. The males will be black with a yellow head spot at hatch and have barring. The females will have no head spot and be black with no barring.
The chicks from this cross will have regular feathers, not silkie feathers.
If you cross a barred male from the cross BACK TO a Silkie, you should get a % of barred and silkie feathered chicks.

 

[woodsygal]

Thanks so much for answering. I'm keeping 3 and will sell 3. Do I sell them as black sex link or cuckoo? When are they considered cuckoo?

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

If they were here and I were offering them for sale, I'd call them "Silkie x Rock crosses".
The barred ones (with head spot = male), you could call cuckoo.

 

[donrae]

1. Does this combo make a silkied cuckoo? Or is it the 2nd generation becomes the desired silkied cuckoo? Silkie feathering is recessive, so the first generation won't show silkie feathering, but will carry the gene for it. If you take this F1 bird and breed it back to a silkie, I think you'll get 50% silkie feathered offspring. However, they won't have good silkie type, because they'll still be 1/4 Rock. Breeding for type will take a longer time.
2. Will the males look more like silkies while the females look more like barred rocks? not necessarily. I'd thought from this cross the females would have black skin and the males yellow, but that's not what I'm seeing. I may PM Marvin to check in here and educate me

3. If any white is on their head, is it male? Subsequently- solid black head would be female? Yes, you have a classic black sex link, you just threw the silkie in the mix but that doesn't change the genetic rules of barring.

So, if you take one of your barred males...he has one barring gene and is hard feathered but carries a recessive gene for silkie feathers. If you put him over say a black silkie hen (just using black for ease), you'd get half barred chicks and half non-barred chicks, regardless of gender. So half the girls would be barred and half the boys would be barred, the other birds would be solid black. Throw in the recessive silkie gene and I think half the birds will be silkied, regardless of gender. Someone check my math here, but if you hatched out 100 chicks from that cross, you'd average 50 males. From that 50, 25 would be barred, 25 would be solid. 25 would be silkied, 25 would be hard feathered. How many would be silkied and barred would be a crapshoot.

There's also a thing about getting black skin on a barred/cuckoo bird. Check out the threads on barred/cuckoo Easter eggers or Ameraucanas for that challenge. Or, maybe Marvin could help you with that, also. Educate us both

Can you post a pic of the barred hen you used? Does she have nice yellow legs?

 

[woodsygal]

Thank you so much Donrae. I'm excited about the progression of this but have a lot to learn. Here she is. Also have one from the silver PR below but am focussing on the barred.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Thank you so much Donrae. I'm excited about the progression of this but have a lot to learn. Here she is. Also have one from the silver PR below but am focussing on the barred.

The girl on the left looks like a blue barred from here.

 

[woodsygal]

The girl on the left looks like a blue barred from here.

She was sold to me as a silver penciled plymouth rock. I've only had PR's for 5 months, they're a new breed for me so please let me know if you still think she's a bb from the below photo. I really love their sweet, inquisitive nature.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

This is silver penciled Rock(Image borrowed from http://horstmanspoultry.com/largefowlhome/silverpencilrock.html)

Hard to tell from a pic sometimes, though.

 

[woodsygal]

Oh, she's much, much lighter than that. That's a beauty. Mine are pet quality which is fine with me but I always like to know what I have. Thanks for the help, I'm going with blue, they seem a lot lighter from my google search.