Can someone help me figure this out! Cuckoo silkie question.

[RingoldChick]

I have this pair of cuckoos. I hatched out three eggs. I thought all three would be cuckoo. Only the male is a cuckoo. The two females are totally different. One's a blue and the other is a partridge.

Is the cuckoo roo the problem?

Parents are above
Offspring below:

 

[Melky]

I have this pair of cuckoos. I hatched out three eggs. I thought all three would be cuckoo. Only the male is a cuckoo. The two females are totally different. One's a blue and the other is a partridge.

Is the cuckoo roo the problem?
View attachment 1620545

Parents are above
Offspring below:
View attachment 1620559 View attachment 1620561 View attachment 1620562

Where did you get the two parent cuckoo marans? Were they purebreds?
Do you have more than one rooster in the coop/run with female parent? Looks like hen of mixed parentage or fertilized by more than one roo.

 

[RingoldChick]

They are silkies. I got both from the same person. No other rooster.

 

[Melky]

They are silkies. I got both from the same person. No other rooster.

That might explain it since silkie mix. I did think silkie in the breed mix. Hence the different offspring.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

The male parent is only carrying one copy of the barring gene.

Recall that the barring gene is sex linked, so the barred hen passes barring to all of the male off spring, so the males are guaranteed to be barred.

But because barring is sex linked the female offspring only get barring from the rooster. But because he only has one copy of barring, he only passes that gene to 50% of his off spring... or better put he has only a 50% chance of passing it to his offspring.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Note too that a rooster that carries 2 copies of barring is typically lighter than a single barred rooster or a barred hen.

Edit to add... so your barred cockerel could have 1 or 2 copies of the barring gene... so you might be able to tell by appearance if it is noticeably lighter.

 

[RingoldChick]

Note too that a rooster that carries 2 copies of barring is typically lighter than a single barred rooster or a barred hen.

Edit to add... so your barred cockerel could have 1 or 2 copies of the barring gene... so you might be able to tell by appearance if it is noticeably lighter.

He is fairly light. So, does the male offspring have 1 or 2 copies of the barring gene? Will he be just like the father and only have one? He does appear to be darker.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

He could be either way... either like his father...or he could have two copies...

If he had a brother and he was much lighter that the brother, then you’d expect he would be double for barring, and the brother only carrying one barring gene.

But I just did a bit of reading on cuckoo silkies... and learned enough to know that determining a double barring male by light color might be harder with silkies that in other breeds like barred rocks, etc

Likely the only real way to know is to do a test mating...to an unbarred hen.

For instance if you crossed him with a black hen, and he carries just one barring gene, then the offspring has a 50% chance of being unbarred black. If he carries 2 copies all of his offspring will be barred.

Or put another way, if you cross him to a black hen and get any black offspring you know he’s not carrying two copies of the gene.

You could also just hatch another larger batch from your original parents and hope to get a male offspring with double barring... selecting the lightest barred male for instance.

 

[RingoldChick]

He could be either way... either like his father...or he could have two copies...

If he had a brother and he was much lighter that the brother, then you’d expect he would be double for barring, and the brother only carrying one barring gene.

But I just did a bit of reading on cuckoo silkies... and learned enough to know that determining a double barring male by light color might be harder with silkies that in other breeds like barred rocks, etc

Likely the only real way to know is to do a test mating...to an unbarred hen.

For instance if you crossed him with a black hen, and he carries just one barring gene, then the offspring has a 50% chance of being unbarred black. If he carries 2 copies all of his offspring will be barred.

Or put another way, if you cross him to a black hen and get any black offspring you know he’s not carrying two copies of the gene.

You could also just hatch another larger batch from your original parents and hope to get a male offspring with double barring... selecting the lightest barred male for instance.

Thank you! This is great information! I'm much more educated now!