Can satin be bred out of my silkie flock?

[Debbie292d]

3 could be mauve maybe, but yes, 3 and 4 are silkies. 4 is a partridge but don't think 3 is.

This is my mauve rooster and he started out looking sort of like your #3. I was trying to find a chick pic of him.

 

[juci]

This is my mauve rooster and he started out looking sort of like your #3. I was trying to find a chick pic of him.

Ooh he’s so nice! So puffy and the color is actually beautiful. I love the body type too. Sturdy!

 

[Cloverr39]

Here's some advice for when you're starting out with breeding.

You should not be culling as hard when you're just starting out. Right now you should focus on growing your flock, keeping ones that generally fit what you're looking for and then later when you have a larger flock, start culling harder. You don't need every single bird to be perfect. I still wouldn't keep any with 4 toes on both feet but if a pullet had 5 on one and 4 on the other and everything else was good, I would keep her as long as your your breeding rooster was as good as you can get. Especially if it's hard to get birds I'm your area.

Edit: Even if all your birds had 5 perfectly placed toes, you could get chicks with too many or too little toes. All of my breeders that I hatched my most recent batch out of had 5 toes and many had really good toe placement, yet I still got 4 chicks with too many toes or two nails on one toe. The polydactyl gene is unpredictable.