Is anyone working on a blue egg laying silkies project?

[Slothinc]

Here are two of the cute frizzled laced satins that hatched out of blue eggs. (Sorry I said silkies above but these two are satin silkies) And there is a picture of a partridge silkie that hatched out of the same batch, so all 3 are from the same mom. So I’m not sure I would want to breed them together. And their dad doesn’t have the blue egg gene so I’m hoping that the girls inherited it from their mom. They are from Akers Farm in Florida.

Then I have 2 lavender ameraucana bantams that are about 6 weeks old (a pullet and a cockerel) and also the newly hatched black chick which is a cross of silkie and ameraucana bantam. They are from Norsk Farms in VA. I tried to get silkie EE eggs twice but it didn’t work out (the shipped eggs have been so beat up by usps this year, it has been awful!!!) I did get one chick though that is a cross between marans and silkied EE so she will lay an olive egg and could have babies with silkie feathers if bred to a silkie. But yeah because of usps it is going to be even more slow going than I originally thought!

I have a dream of having lavender silkies so if I need to start with the lav bantams that would work to fulfill two purposes - adding the lav gene and adding the blue egg gene. The blue eggs that they hatched out of aren’t super bright blue but maybe I could work on that further down the line.

I’d love to hear about your project when you start on it!!

 

[Slothinc]

Do you have pictures of the birds you're using for your project? I'm trying to get ideas, lol. I would like them to look visually appealing and somewhat the same across the hatches but am unsure of what direction to take this regarding what breeds to use and which direction....male silkie to female Easter eggers? Maybe a crested cream legbars? Do CCLs come in bantam size too? I was thinking maybe something lavender would be cool? Or maybe a mottled or paint variety?

Your idea of using a male silkie over females of the blue egg breeds is very smart, as I recently found out that fibro Roos over light skinned hens create sex linked offspring, with the females retaining the dark skin. So that is a great starting place in my opinion.

 

[Slothinc]

I just wanted to update this thread, as I now have an F2 pullet laying a blue egg. She is 3/4 silkie, 1/4 ameraucana bantam. She’s a cute girl. Obviously lacking in crest and silkie type. But if she is bred to a silkie boy, then the chicks will be 7/8 silkie and her offspring will have 50/50 chance of getting a single blue egg gene. I also have several other F1 pullets now laying blue eggs. It has been really fun. I am working on lavender colored birds also, and it is just so enjoyable. I’ll attach photos of her, and her egg is on the left in the photo of 3 eggs.

 

[Hinotori]

I just wanted to update this thread, as I now have an F2 pullet laying a blue egg. She is 3/4 silkie, 1/4 ameraucana bantam. She’s a cute girl. Obviously lacking in crest and silkie type. But if she is bred to a silkie boy, then she will be 7/8 silkie and her offspring will have 50/50 chance of getting a single blue egg gene. I also have several other F1 pullets now laying blue eggs. It has been really fun. I am working on lavender colored birds also, and it is just so enjoyable. I’ll attach photos of her, and her egg is on the left in the photo of 3 eggs.

Looking pretty good for the gen

 

[Slothinc]

Looking pretty good for the gen

Thank you. I was initially kind of starting to wonder if I had made a mistake on my record keeping and she was full silkie. Because I do have a hen with a smaller crest who is probably her mom. But thankfully she laid a blue egg so it was confirmed that the ameraucana bantam genes are in her line!

 

[RememberTheWay]

I just wanted to update this thread, as I now have an F2 pullet laying a blue egg. She is 3/4 silkie, 1/4 ameraucana bantam. She’s a cute girl. Obviously lacking in crest and silkie type. But if she is bred to a silkie boy, then the chicks will be 7/8 silkie and her offspring will have 50/50 chance of getting a single blue egg gene. I also have several other F1 pullets now laying blue eggs. It has been really fun. I am working on lavender colored birds also, and it is just so enjoyable. I’ll attach photos of her, and her egg is on the left in the photo of 3 eggs.

Have you considered taking a male and female from this generation and Breeding them together to try to get some homozygous genes matched up before breeding back to silkie? Just a thought.... Bc if you choose chicks with the most silkie traits, most of them are dominant so a lot of the chicks should express them but only have one copy of them. By breeding them together you would get chicks that are homozygous for those traits like crest, five toes, fibro skin, brown eyes, the blue egg gene, etc and then breeding back to silkie you should further cement those things but hopefully more likely keep the blue egg gene because it would passed to all offspring instead of just some

I would at the very least produce a homozygous blue male by breeding them together so you know moving forward that your male is only going to pass a blue egg gene. You could then breed females back to silkies, select for silkie traits and green eggs and then breed back to your homozygous blue male that has most of the silkie traits

There are probably several ways to skin this cat though

 

[Serge rozhkov]

I have 5 silkie cross lavender aurucana hens that lay blue eggs

 

[Slothinc]

Have you considered taking a male and female from this generation and Breeding them together to try to get some homozygous genes matched up before breeding back to silkie? Just a thought.... Bc if you choose chicks with the most silkie traits, most of them are dominant so a lot of the chicks should express them but only have one copy of them. By breeding them together you would get chicks that are homozygous for those traits like crest, five toes, fibro skin, brown eyes, the blue egg gene, etc and then breeding back to silkie you should further cement those things but hopefully more likely keep the blue egg gene because it would passed to all offspring instead of just some

I would at the very least produce a homozygous blue male by breeding them together so you know moving forward that your male is only going to pass a blue egg gene. You could then breed females back to silkies, select for silkie traits and green eggs and then breed back to your homozygous blue male that has most of the silkie traits

There are probably several ways to skin this cat though

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions!!! That sounds like exactly what I should do. I really appreciate the guidance!

I am in the process right now of getting 5 little chicks tested for blue egg to see if they have 0, 1 or 2 copies of the gene. Three of these chicks are a result of the brother of the F2 paint girl above crossed with an F1 pullet. I never tested that boy, so it is possible that he doesn’t carry the blue egg gene, and if so, all the chicks will have 0 or 1 blue egg genes. I also have a ton of eggs in the incubator right now that are blue eggs from mainly F1 birds crossed to lavender silkie roo. So those will be F2s that only have a chance of having 1 blue egg gene, but I can then use the blue egg gene babies to cross to each other and try for homozygous. Don’t have a great pic of the babies, but putting one below. I am testing two paint, one lavender, one lavender paint and one black NN.

Because of current space restraints, I am doing things haphazardly. But as soon as I have things set up better for breeding (within the next year) I am hoping to have a little jumpstart on the project!!

 

[Slothinc]

I have 5 silkie cross lavender aurucana hens that lay blue eggs

I bet they are beautiful! Are the babies all black? Are they closer in size to a silkie or arucauna?