Part of the content of this is being pulled from https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...stions-part-general-faq-cemanis-silkies-other this thread that I made loaded with questions (and, while I'm approaching serious breeders, a "PLEASE BE GENTLE" explanation on there). TLDR version: I'm new to specialties. Production chickens is one thing, specialty flock is another. And we recently came by a steal on lineaged (with papers) cemanis, as well as some silkies. So, extracting from my above thread's questions: Preliminary question: The Silkie (At the risk of being shot dead by strict breeders) would it be some kind of sacrilege, in the distant future, to breed our Cemanis (? Question mark? More on them below) to our silkies for diversification of genetics in the hopes of maintaining strong melanism? Am I going to be hunted down by some sort of Cemanilluminati? What could I expect out of that in the future? (Our silkie roo is black.) Ayam Cemani...? First I've read that cemanis are never really phenotypically the same as their parents, so is it possible for a Cemani to have a Kedu as a child, or something similar? I saw the parents, they're black as night, but the chicks have some white floof - or more of a powdering, mostly on the belly; and the older one that's feathering out has a lot of crazy marks on it. Is that normal? How can I tell if they're going to be true ayam cemanis? Is this some "wait and find out" kind of thing? I read something about feathering rate sometimes being an indicator? Can I get some clarification on that? We really do intend to get into specialties and breeding, but this was something that came up as a question. I admittedly joked about making poofy Cemanis, and then happened to stumble on silkie melanism traits, then started wondering about the genetics of it and while at a CORE it seems like it's a genetically sound path to take, I'm neither a biologist nor a breeding expert and I'd like to know from people who actually know what they're doing. From what I've seen, the FM value of a silkie is actually several times stronger than a cemani, which interested me.
(Edit: They approved the post after I posted an actual upload; there was a link here. But I learned to be a not-scrubby-newbie and upload to my gallery. Augh.) I don't see a delete function.
I acquired a brain and realized a picture of the Ayam Cemani coloration in question would be helpful. That's what the youngest look like. We also received an older one, and as I am not yet experienced in watching Ayam Cemanis mature, I suppose I had some mythic idea that they would be pitch black through and through even while feathering out, but it's been implied this is normal? (4-5 weeks; the exposure on this camera is really high because the lighting in the room is terrible. Some is glare, but I trut you guys have the eye to know what isn't.)
I like your idea of crossbreeding the Cemanis and Silkies, but you wouldn't be able to show them or sell them as pure cemanis or silkies, which would lower their value and make them useless to breeders. However, if you are just breeding for fun, I say go ahead, because I would love to see pictures of those crosses. It sounds adorable. Especially cool since both breeds have black skin. I'd say to wait until the Ayam Cemanis are older, and breed the birds with the least amount of white. Black chickens tend to get blacker as they reach maturity. I'm not a breeder quite yet, but I've been doing my research on various breeds, and I've looked at as lot of posts on here about breeds.
If FM is your goal, you could always cross with Svart Honas, too. Every now and then Svart Honas produce a wooly, which makes me think there was a Silkie in the line at some distant point.
To me it would be acceptable to cross the Cemani with Red Jungle Fowl stock to introduce fresh blood, Cemani rooster crossed with RJF hens will produce all black, progeny with very good Fibromelanistic pigmentation without any of the difficult to breed out genes found on silkies(5 toes, walnut comb, recessive silkie feathers).
