easter egg silkies?!?

[silkielover5]

so i was thinking about showgirls and then i thought about americanas (yes i probley spelt that wrong) would it be possible to breed silkies to americanas and keep crossing the young back to a silkie much like breeding showgirls. would the offspring someday look like a silkie but lay colored eggs.

 

[kfacres]

Quote:
Yes with enough eggs hatched, trial and error, and time... anything, even that is possible...

The key will be having a huge number of eggs to constantely hatch, and a huge number of chicks to be able to cull from... It will take a TON of culling, and even more feed to get you where you want to go.. Time is also something that must not have a set number on....

I would guess a min of 5-7 generations to get where you want, depending on how many birds you do make each year. It will take tons of the first cross to sort out the colored eggers and then be able to make them look like a silkie.. time and time again, you'll have to mate back to Silkie to keep the Silkie charactoristics... and after awhile, you'll have to breed back to get the colored egg gene..

One of the hardest things you'll have to combat, is the fact that you're breeding for egg color.. that means you'll have to raise every pullet up until she begins to lay eggs, and lay them correctly. Instead of culling based on color like most people do when they are doing a project.

Then you have to think about the pea comb being linked to the blue egg gene-- and the fact that Silkies are supposed to have a walnut comb..

It may take you 10 generations to get anything close to what you want...

I think you would be better of breeding Silkied EE bantams... That would get you the same thing, realistically, but in a far shorter time period...

 

[Cattitude]

This is the project I'm working on right now. I have a little over year of working the project under my belt, and just beginning to see eggs from F2. All of my F1s lay a blue or green egg. I kept the ones with black skin, five toes, and the blue egg gene, and I passed the hens without black skin and five toes to Mom and Sis for their layer flock. I'm planning to separate F2s out by color and cross back to the true Silkie to get the proper feathers going again. I'm still hatching chicks from the original crosses. And I'll be maintaining pure Silkies as well!

Yes, it's going to take a long time. I have time, I hope. The rest of my life would be lovely!

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! It's do-able!
Quote:
I have the next generation laying, but haven't taken pics.

Lisa

 

[Cattitude]

Woot! Maybe come Spring we can trade some eggs! You're farther along than I am. What size eggs are you getting? My girls are just a bit larger than the standard Silkie and lay an egg that borders on Large.

This incubator pic kinda gives you a scale on the size of the eggs. These are some of the F2 chicks hatched this spring, that are now beginning to lay:

 

[silkielover5]

Thanks

right now im breeding silkies and showgirls. next year ill get some americana hens, where would i find some with the silkie feather gene?!? ive been thinking about this for a couple weeks now