Feet! re:silkies & genetic traits getting passed down...

[Spongegirl]

Hello, and I am wondering about feet. I am over the top particular about my silkies feet. I have silkies with four toes and i have silkies with lobster claws, an extra toenail, and nubs on top of nubs. lol but not on the same bird. I also have birds with perfect feet toes and spacing. Those will be my breeders choices but ... actually i have sold off most of those other freak ones but i have questions. I have hatched all of these from shipped eggs, so they are not my own line. I've read other threads to try and find answers but nothing is that solid and direct.

I read that 4 toes is genetic where extra toes are incubating and development problems but i don't think i buy that. I think its all genetic problems. And can one of those four toed parents produce a perfect toed baby? will it be half wrong toes and half correct toes providing the other parent is correct? WIll that lobster claw always show up? I would sell off all of these but i have grown very attached to otherwise gorgeous birds that would make good parents if those traits aren't always passed down. I have a four toed buff pullet im in love with. But its only on one foot. Will all her babies have the four toes?
My showgirl... i need her but there is that dred lobster claw thing...GAK!

 

[Spongegirl]

I shoulda posted this in genetics and breeding ... can we move it?

 

[Spongegirl]

Heeeello? Come on, I know you guys and gals have more experience than I do. Surely you know if 4 toes and 6 toes are always passed down or only sometimes passed down. I only have f1s so far to compare and none of those parents started with wonky toes so they are all normal 5 toed. I don't want to wait a year to have the experience myself, I wanna know now lol. I think I'm going to hypothesize that these are genetic traits passed down and not an incubation problem. Yes, some will have bad toes but if the other parent has good toes, some babies will have good toes as well. Right?

 

[The Hustons]

Post in silkie thread they will have the answer !!!! I'm curious to kno the answer .

 

[keesmom]

I have Faverolles, but they have 5 toes too. Extra toes and nails are genetic. I found it to be highly heritable (in my limited experience). All the offspring from one pair last year had extra nails. It took me a while to find out why - the hen had a fused pair of nails on the 4th toes. Very hard to see on her but it was obvious on every one of her offspring. I did not try her with another male to see if I could get better results so I removed her from the breeding pen, and to hopefully remove the gene from my breeders.

 

[Spongegirl]

oh wow! thanks a lot for that. That's what I figured. oh my! dang. well, most of mine now are perfect...but there is this one buff im in love with and a showgirl with a lobster claw that I really needed. But I don't think im willing to use the loberster claw at all. The buff hen, four toes on one foot and a nubby with no nail on the other. CRAP! lol