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The lighting wasn't good enough to get the eye color, since it was really faint. Plus not all Albinos have pink eyes, & have been incorrectly placed as Leucistic.Those look like normal eyes to me.
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The lighting wasn't good enough to get the eye color, since it was really faint. Plus not all Albinos have pink eyes, & have been incorrectly placed as Leucistic.Those look like normal eyes to me.
I have a black Silkie bantam, a Black Copper Marans, an Australorp cross, & Black Sumatras. Those are my black birds.
Which of these would be good to use to make black?
What color are those largest Silkie hens? It might be easiest to just develop that color first, because then you don't have to cross in anything else.After the Malays hatch, I'll be breeding the Giant Silkies next. Back crossing to my largest Silkie hens. One of them is broody anyways, so I gotta wait.
My only black silkie is a Rooster, so I can't back cross with him. He also has gold leakage in his hackles.Since you already need to do a backcross to Silkie, I would probably use the black Silkie Bantam.
Or if the Autralorp cross is nice and black and big, maybe that one.
Black Copper Marans are not solid black, so I wouldn't use them to try and make a solid black bird.
And Black Sumatras are nice and black, but I'd probably skip them because they've got so many other traits that you won't want (body shape, size, long tail.)
Any bird that is black with white barring could also work fine.
What color are those largest Silkie hens? It might be easiest to just develop that color first, because then you don't have to cross in anything else.
My only black silkie is a Rooster, so I can't back cross with him. He also has gold leakage in his hackles.
The Australorp cross is pretty pure black, just a touch of red leakage near head on her upper neck.
I have a Heritage Plymouth Barred Rock pullet who's laying, so I'll give it a try.
My largest silkie hens are Dominant white. Poof recently had some grey leakage in her shoulder after molting.
I know one of these two bantam silkies carries the barring gene, I hatched a blue Cuckoo silkie mix from one of them. These aren't the large girls.The Dominant White silkies could be a great choice.
They probably have the genetics for solid black, and then the Dominant White gene turning all the black into white. (And there's at least a slim chance that they could have blue or barring hiding in there too--you'd never know by looking at them, but if it's there it might show up in their grandchicks.)
Given that you need to get the silkie traits anyway, it's probably much easier to develop the colors they already carry the genes for, before branching out to other colors.I know one of these two bantam silkies carries the barring gene, I hatched a blue Cuckoo silkie mix from one of them. These aren't the large girls....
One of my Larger Silkie hens carries lavender, & possibly silver.
I guess I can start out with them.Given that you need to get the silkie traits anyway, it's probably much easier to develop the colors they already carry the genes for, before branching out to other colors.