Color genetics question

[teriz1091]

This little chick is our first home hatched baby. Our rooster is a white silkie, the hen is a white Leghorn. (I’m certain it was this hen, she’s my only white egg layer)
This little one is a beautiful beige color, with some tan in the wings.
What causes two white birds to produce a colored chick?

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

Could you take another photo tomorrow in the sunlight? : D I've love to see them better! I'd expect just white from the pairing but you could get leakage, I doubt it'd be anything like yellowing due to diet/sun because of their age and the season...

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Silkies are most often recessive white which means your rooster may be "hiding" other colors underneath the white. Leghorns are dominant white, anything they cross with will be white, depending on the other birds coloring. Example is an austrawhite which is a leghorn crossed with an australorp, they are white with some black flecks. In this case the other coloring you are seeing is likely leakage from whatever the silkie is hiding. Most often this is partridge in silkies, but not always. Looks like you have a little cockerel there, in case you did not know.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Is your silkie your only male? He doesn't look like a F1 silkie mix.

 

[teriz1091]

Could you take another photo tomorrow in the sunlight? : D I've love to see them better! I'd expect just white from the pairing but you could get leakage, I doubt it'd be anything like yellowing due to diet/sun because of their age and the season...

New pictures from this morning, & of both parents. Hen’s just dirty from the mud, she’s white as a sheet normally. The rooster’s from Tractor Supply, so not a high quality bird.

 

[teriz1091]

Is your silkie your only male? He doesn't look like a F1 silkie mix.

Here’s pictures of them all. Top left is the silkie roo, bottom left is the leghorn hen. Top right is my only other roo, a silver Duckwing old English bantam. But he’s still young & is very small, I’ve never seen him attempt to mount any of the hens, & he’s so small I’m not sure he’d be physically capable of getting the deed done.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Here’s pictures of them all. Top left is the silkie roo, bottom left is the leghorn hen. Top right is my only other roo, a silver Duckwing old English bantam. But he’s still young & is very small, I’ve never seen him attempt to mount any of the hens, & he’s so small I’m not sure he’d be physically capable of getting the deed done.
View attachment 2510285

Interesting. The OEGB wouldn’t have any red to pass on to the chick, yet the chick doesn’t appear to have any silkie characteristics. If the silkie is the father, I agree with @LadiesAndJane, that the color hidden under the recessive white of the silkie is showing up as leakage in his offspring.

 

[NatJ]

my only other roo, a silver Duckwing old English bantam. But he’s still young & is very small, I’ve never seen him attempt to mount any of the hens, & he’s so small I’m not sure he’d be physically capable of getting the deed done.

Small roosters often manage just fine with larger hens (not always, but often.)

That chick is a bit puzzling.

--Silkie crosses usually have crests
--Silkie crosses usually have feathered feet
--Silkie crosses usually have a 5th toe
--Silkie cross usually do NOT have single combs

But when I look at your Silkie rooster, he's certainly got the Silkie feathers (don't show in first generation crossed offspring), but he doesn't have the other Silkie traits very strongly: small crest, few feathers on feet, comb not shaped like most Silkie combs, and I can't see how many toes. So I think he could well be the father, although I expect if you hatch more chicks from him you'll get some with the more common Silkie-cross traits.

Is your silkie your only male? He doesn't look like a F1 silkie mix.

Going by the pictures, I'm thinking that Silkie rooster might be split for crest/not-crest and pea comb/not-pea comb, with no rose comb at all, and the feet are sparsely feathered. I can't see number of toes. So a chick like that could be possible--I just would not have expected it to so completely miss that many of the Silkie breed traits!

 

[Chris2018]

The Old English rooster carries the Gold in his background.
Look at his Wing Bow its not a true Silver like his Primaries, there a "dirty" color.
I would say that he is a Golden Duck-wing, "faded" but to a point still a Golden Duck-Wing.
Now if you look at the young bird in question it also shows Gold in her much like a hatchery Pyle OE pullet.
I would say that the father to that young bird in question is the Golden OE.

 

[teriz1091]

Thank you all for the input! Here’s updated photos of the little roo in question.

This is Snowcone, the chick, on top, with both of my roosters. He hasn’t grown very large, & he definitely has the bantam’s leg coloring.

And here’s one with the Leghorn hen he came from. I definitely see this cross now that people have pointed it out!