Cuckoo Silkies- Updated Pics Page 4

[swheat]

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Just have to wait and see, my breeding pen is growing. It is just when I am working on a project I want to hatch all the eggs

to just SEE that special ONE hatch..thats what makes it worth all the time and effort one has to endure.

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Thank you DF, I am trying to get them ready, so when they want to crossover to the Dark Side, meaning Black skin, they will be ready !!!

and in the mean time I will still enjoy them.

 

[Darling Farms]

They don't have to be perfect to have a few pullets for our 'pet' silkie yard candy...

How much DARK SKIN do you have now?

Sending 'Dark Side' thoughts your way... now I'm going to have Star Wars music in my head all day!

 

[swheat]

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I have been working on Cuckoo for a few years. When I first started out, I wasn't happy at all with the results..so I scrapped everything. I found a new Cuckoo roo and put him on my best black hens I had and bingo..the birds pictured are the offspring of that 1st crossing..sometime you just get lucky and find a cross the seem to work. So the birds still have pale shin,,some with patched of white and of course the roo have the red combs. Now, those offspring are laying so I am hope they get a little better with each cross.

Opps...sorry about the Star Wars music !!

 

[guinealady]

I too am trying to breed the cuckoo color and started about 3 yrs ago ...I have some really nice hens also and coule roo's I kept from last yr..I am wondering if now is the time to put a nice cuckoo silkie with a nice cuckoo hen and see what happens ...or should I keep putting my hens with a black roo ? I have kept all my nicer colored and type hens and just not sure at what point I should try the cuckoo to cuckoo breeding ?

 

[swheat]

guinealady- I sent you a PM.

I'll repeat though,
I think it would be best to breed to black and shoot for the black skin,comb & beak. However, I am going to breed some cuckoo X cuckoo just to see, I would like to hatch a light cuckoo roo(2 doses of barring) to put over some black hens for all cuckoo offspring.

More pics

of a couple pullets from the grow-out pen.

 

[sawmane1]

unbelievable! (i think thats how you spell it?)

 

[Svarthona]

Very very very pretty birds. I'm in awe

And I have a question

Do your birds have mottled skin on their legs/feet? Is there a correlation between the mottled skin and mottled legs?
How about beak color? How easy is it to get dark beaks - do they show up more often than mottled skin with a good amount of dark mottles?

I'm not working with cuckoo silkies, but with cuckoo and Swedish black hens which also have black skin like silkies do.
It's one of those "you are crazy for even trying!"-projects and it's hard to get any recommendations on what to select for, so I thought I'd try asking here how you select between the ones to use for further breeding.
Last year I chose those with mottled legs and dark beaks and just some dark skin spots and not those with more darker skin but lacking a dark beak... but I have no idea if that was a good decision. Maybe getting dark beaks is happening quite frequently and I should have kept the ones showing more dark skin?

Suggestions?

 

[Teresaann24]

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Do you have any pics of them as babies? I just got my cuckoo eggs in the mail today and wonder what they will look like when hatched.

 

[guinealady]

lovely cuckoo silkies ..I will try to get some pics of mine and of roo I want to use and get on here but will probably be next week we are in the midst of more snow and cooler weather again ..will it ever quit...I am so ready for spring

 

[Teresaann24]

I would love to see some of them as babies I have 12 cuckoo eggs in the bator just wanna know what I will be getting as they hatch.