How to create a black crested white silkie from scratch?

[luckiestck1]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has an idea how one would create a black crested white silkie from scratch.

1. What color silkie should i start with as the base? White, or Partridge or any other suggestions?

2. What breeds could i breed to the silkies to get the black crest with white body

3. How could i get them to breed true?

Below are the inspiration pics (Not My pics). Side note: I would only want the black to only be on the crest/puff on head and not on the rest on the body.

I think a silkie with this coloring would be amazing.

Any ideas/ help with be greatly valued.

 

[Amer]

Breed a black crested white Polish male over a buff Silkie female.
Breed offspring together and hatch a lot so you sort of get what you’re looking for. Breed those together and keep going, picking the birds that best match your desired result and breeding them.
I think this has the potential to look really cool!

 

[Amer]

Alternatively, you could try to breed Moorhead silver partridge (silver partridge is gray in Silkies) over a buff Silkie and try to achieve those results that way.

 

[Amer]

The second option might be easier if you can find any Moorheads.

 

[Amer]

Anyway, charcoal which is the gene that causes Moorhead, is recessive, so when it doesn’t show in the first generation, do not despair, they still carry the gene.

 

[luckiestck1]

Breed a black crested white Polish male over a buff Silkie female.
Breed offspring together and hatch a lot so you sort of get what you’re looking for. Breed those together and keep going, picking the birds that best match your desired result and breeding them.
I think this has the potential to look really cool!

Hi Amer,
Thanks for the feedback. Can i ask why a buff silkie female and what silkie colour would i breed with after the first cross?
I live in Australia so there are some breeds i cant get but i have been looking for a black crested white Polish but yet to find any at all. What other breed would you suggest?
and yes, i think they would be really cool too.

 

[luckiestck1]

Alternatively, you could try to breed Moorhead silver partridge (silver partridge is gray in Silkies) over a buff Silkie and try to achieve those results that way.

Dont Moorhead silver partridge have silver grey bodys? how would that work if i want a white body when breeding over buff?

 

[luckiestck1]

I just had a thought could i get some wcb polish to breed with a silkie but pick for ones that have white on body and more black in crest and continue picking for more white on body and black in crest over the generations. Would something like that work?
Another way i could see getting the colour is to cross a silkie with a lakenvelder which while very rare i might be able to get.

 

[Amer]

Hi Amer,
Thanks for the feedback. Can i ask why a buff silkie female and what silkie colour would i breed with after the first cross?
I live in Australia so there are some breeds i cant get but i have been looking for a black crested white Polish but yet to find any at all. What other breed would you suggest?
and yes, i think they would be really cool too.

There are two types of pigment found in chicken plumage: eumelanins and pheomelanins. Imagine a slider with black on one side and buff on the other and gold duckwing somewhere near the middle, since it has a mixture of both black and gold. Pheomelanin extension genes push gold over the whole bird moving the line closer to buff the more pheomelanin genes you have. Buff chickens have the most pheomelanin extension genes out of all the colors.
Black crested buff chickens have all of these pheomelanin extension genes but they also have a melanizer: charcoal, which gives them a black head.
Black crested white is a black headed buff but with a gene called silver that erases all the gold pigment, leaving you with white.
Sorry I wrote this at 11 pm this probably makes no sense.
In other words, black crested white is buff but with the charcoal gene giving them a black head and the silver gene erasing all of their gold.
That segways us into the silver partridge moorhead Silkie.
They introduce the two genes the buff doesn't have! They have the silver gene and the charcoal gene!
Yes, there are other irrelevant genes that must be discarded along the way, but both buff and silver moorhead partridge are equally important to your project.
The silver partridge moorhead must be a rooster since the silver gene is sex linked.
Once you make the initial cross the best thing to do is to continue breeding the offspring together since they have all the genes you need, with a wrong alleles mixed in as well.

 

[Amer]

I just had a thought could i get some wcb polish to breed with a silkie but pick for ones that have white on body and more black in crest and continue picking for more white on body and black in crest over the generations. Would something like that work?
Another way i could see getting the colour is to cross a silkie with a lakenvelder which while very rare i might be able to get.

The first one wouldn't work, white crested black is literally the opposite of black crested white. It is a black bird with a white gene (mottling) rather than a silver bird with a melanizing gene.

Yes, Lakenvelders do have the right genes. I still like the moorhead idea but a Lakenvelder male over a buff Silkie female could get the same results in the long run.