Breeding "silkied" birds?

[Chicks 'n ducks]

Okay, so I am officially lost in the ocean of genetics. I want to try breeding silkied cochins, but I don't know where to start. I read that the silkied gene can just show up, and that's how things like the silkied seramas were created. But if you don't have access to silkied birds to begin with, where do you start? I have silkie rooster and would be buying some cochin hens if that means anything.
Thanks!

 

[The Moonshiner]

Silkie feathering is recessive so it takes two copies to be silkie.
A silkie will pass one copy to the offspring when bred to a non silkie.
Breed your silkie rooster to cochin hens.
Breed two of the offspring that look closest to the cochin look together.
That should produce about 25% silkie chicks. Breed the most cochin type silkie chick to a cochin.
Pick best chicks bred back together for more silkie and repeat, repeat, repeat.

 

[Chicks 'n ducks]

Thank you so much! wouldn't breeding the most cochin type silkie chick back to a pure cochin result in smooth feathered birds?

 

[The Moonshiner]

Yes it would but they would all carry one copy of the silkie gene.
You have to carry the silkie gene forward so you get a silkie chick. Breed it to cochin then breed those chicks together and keep silkie chick then do it again and again.
You need to keep breeding back to cochin every other generation to breed in the cochin genes and breed out the unwanted silkie genes like black skin, extra toe, wrong comb etc, etc.

 

[nicalandia]

Thank you so much! wouldn't breeding the most cochin type silkie chick back to a pure cochin result in smooth feathered birds?

Correct, but these silkie feathered F2s you are breeding back to pure cochin are only about 50% Chochin, so you NEED to introduce more cochin blood to increase the Cochin blood to 75%, the result of silkie feathered F2s when crossed back to pure chochin will result with birds that are 75% cochin and have one copy of the recessive silkie feathered gene, take the best looking of this cross(now called Back Cross to Parent line 1 or BC1) and crossed them together(BC1 x BC1) the result of this cross will still have 75% Cochin, with better type and silkie feathered(25% of them), now it's up to you if you would like to breed back again to cochin or if you believe that these 75% blood cochins have enough type to work with.

Cochin = Parent Line 1 = P1(100% Cochin)
Silkie = Parent Line 2 = P2(100% Silkie)
Cochin x Silkie cross = Filial Cross 1 = F1(50% Cochin)
F1 x F1 = Filial Cross 2 = F2(50% Chochin, 25% of them with Silkie feathers)
F2 x P1 = Back Cross to Parent line 1 = BC1(75% Cochin)
BC1 x BC1 = Intercross: BC1 x BC1 = BC1F2(75% Cochin, 25% Silkie feathers)


On the subject of BC1F2, I had to look on Plant breeding strategies, what we call here a BC1 are actually called in the plant breeding world as Back Cross to Parent line Filial 1 lines = BC1F1(BC1 in chicken genetics) the cross of BC1F1(BC1) x BC1F1(BC1) is called BC1F2..

I know, I know it can be quite complicated, but for plants where they make huge amount of crosses thinks like F1, F2, BC1F1, BC1F2, BC2F3, BC4F5 are a normal term,

You may want to keep records of each cross line and parents.

 

[Chicks 'n ducks]

Wow, thanks for all that information!
On a side note, is the blue color gene dominant? Incomplete dominant?
If blue was crossed to brown, would it result in blue offspring?

 

[nicalandia]

Wow, thanks for all that information!
On a side note, is the blue color gene dominant? Incomplete dominant?
If blue was crossed to brown, would it result in blue offspring?

The Blue Bl, is an autosomal(non sexlinked) incomplete dominant gene, one copy of the gene(Bl/bl+) will turn black feathers in to a grey color, two copies will turn the black color in to an almost white color with splashes of black/blue and that is why Bl/Bl is called Splash..

Brown?, perhaps you would like to elaborate on the subject? Many phenotypes can be called brown, for example "brown" leghorns, but they are actually just wildtype birds like Red Jungle Fowl... Chocolate colored birds are not called "Brown" but they are brown colored if you think about it... more on this will help

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

 

[Chicks 'n ducks]

Brown, as in my silkie rooster is partridge. he is kinda reddish and light brown.

I don't have a picture of him, but this is his dad. He is a little lighter than this.