Debbie's Silkies

[janiedoe]

I read that too, thus why I really wasn't into getting any of them, but since I was buying hers mostly for the buffs and lemon cuckoos, I just opted to get a few of them from her. The buffs didn't sound as difficult if I just keep buffs to themselves. I do have one frizzle buff that's 3.5 mos old and appears to be a pullet. We may need another breeding pen or two.

Is your hubby up to building more breeding pens? Because I think its a great idea!

 

[Slothinc]

Well, for the first time, I have a Brinsea 56EX completely loaded with 64 eggs. I couldn't squeeze another in there if I tried, and I did. I had to take my Govee out and replace it with a miniature one.

They are:

7 white silkies.
11 mixed color fancy silkies - both of these are shipped from two different eBay sellers.

The rest are mine in two batches due 5/9, and 5/28.

I got the white ones because for one thing, I have no fancier white chickens, and also, it appears the only paint I own, a NN, I'll keep as it's surely a female, but would hope for a white rooster that might work to make more paints. I've been asked about white ones so figured I should get a fancier white hen and/or rooster anyway.

The mix is just various colored silkies. She has illegible notations on the eggs and sent no cheat sheet so it's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.



Thank you!

On order, shipping soon, are 2-dozen (buff, crele, lemon cuckoo, and porcelain) from Bobbi Porto. Thank you for the lead on her. Good gosh once she got my phone number, I got about 30 texts and learned her life story. Nice lady with gorgeous silkies! I had no real desire to deal with trying porcelains but since I wanted to order from her, I asked her to throw a few in.

I will have some eggs moving out of that Brinsea in a day or two due on 5/9 into the other one for lockdown so will have room when they get here.

Oh my gosh!!! I am so excited for your Bobbi eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh I can’t even wait! Isn’t she so nice? Lol I love her! I hope you get a whole bunch of gorgeous porcelains so I can see all the pics and be extremely jealous Seriously I can’t wait to see her babies when you hatch them. Also very excited for the eggs you currently have in!

Just as an FYI on the paint breeding (this is my understanding so I could be wrong but I love paints so have researched them quite a bit!)

Most white silkies are recessive white. It is very likely that your white silkie eggs are recessive white unless they were sold as dominant white or out of a paint pen. Paint is made by crossing dominant white with black. A paint bird is a black bird with a dominant white gene. The dominant white allows for pigment “holes” that the black peeks through. So if you have a paint already, just cross with a black silkie and you should get half paint, half black from that breeding. Because the paint will pass the dominant white gene to half of the offspring.

Now if you cross two paint birds together, you can end up with 25% white (these birds carry two dominant white genes) 50% paint (carrying one dom white and one black gene) and 25% black (no dom white gene). You can then take the white birds out of this breeding and breed them to a black to get 100% paint offspring.

A couple of other things I had learned about paint when I was researching them - it is preferred to use blacks that are silver based rather than gold based because then you won’t have gold leakage on your paints. But silver based blacks are harder to come by and most breeders don’t exclusively use them. And the other thing is that most paint breeders prefer to use black birds out of paint lines in their paint programs, thinking that the pigment holes will be bigger, and thus the spots will be bigger. However I haven’t really seen hard evidence of that. So if all you have is a gold based black out of non paint lines, I’d still give it a try with a paint hen! Or order eggs from a paint breeder I do think that if you have paint birds with nice bold spots, those birds bred together would probably yield the best paint offspring.

Also not discouraging you from breeding a recessive white to a paint bird, but just know that you very likely won’t get any paints out of such a breeding. Recessive white should only be bred to recessive white, or all sorts of random colors can pop up.

Excited for what you have in the works right now!!

 

[Slothinc]

Oops while I was typing my huge long breeding info for paints I see that you already know all of that info from your last couple of responses to people if you don’t have a black rooster you could ask Bobbi to put in some black eggs for you Or, don’t you have some black mottled?? The mottled gene is recessive so if you end up with a roo, I think you could breed it to paint and it would be as though you were breeding to regular black because the babies would carry the mottle gene but it wouldn’t be expressed.

 

[NagemTX]

I'm dying to see the porcelains. Ive heard they are hard to breed because every few generations, you have to breed to black to get good feather quality.. and I'm guessing getting the creamy buff color back is harder than getting the lavender back.

I have 4 porcelain/blue cream growing out in the brooder now.

 

[Slothinc]

I have 4 porcelain/blue cream growing out in the brooder now.

Where from? I am still crying about the blue cream eggs that I had from Bobbi that shrink wrapped and I lost them. One made it out alive but died shortly after, it was so weak after the shrink wrapping. Oh and I did get one chick out of the blue cream eggs but it’s a black chick No idea how that happened but of course it’s my luck!

 

[janiedoe]

I have 4 porcelain/blue cream growing out in the brooder now.

Picture?

 

[janiedoe]

Where from? I am still crying about the blue cream eggs that I had from Bobbi that shrink wrapped and I lost them. One made it out alive but died shortly after, it was so weak after the shrink wrapping. Oh and I did get one chick out of the blue cream eggs but it’s a black chick No idea how that happened but of course it’s my luck!

I'm so sorry. What a disappointment.

 

[NagemTX]

Picture?

I only have the one from the incubator and the transport bucket. Oh I found one of a boody in the brooder. I will get more this evening.

 

[Slothinc]

I'm so sorry. What a disappointment.

Thank you, it was heartbreaking for me as I have wanted blue cream and lavender for so long now. I have considered ordering more from Bobbi but the timing hasn’t worked out and now I’m about to start my incubator for the last time of spring. So maybe next year I will be able to order some more.

 

[NagemTX]

Mine are from a lady in Main. She sent me 14 eggs. One arrived broken, had only six developing and two quit before lockdown. I was very lucky to get four out of that batch. It's along way from Main to where I live in Texas.