The chocolates originally showed up when I crossed a self-blue splash silkie cockerel with a white silkie pullet--this was back when I was an extreme newbie and asked questions like "what is the difference between self-blue & blue" or "what do you get if you cross splash with white"
They were a dark brownish black with grownish undercoat. I had NO idea what to call them. When I later discovered that chocolate was a colour, I tried breeding for it without a lot of success--most of the offspring were similar--a brownish black. I pretty much gave up on working on it, although I did still hatch an occasional chocolate bird--note that at that point I was still pretty unknowledgeable about poultry genetics, although I had mastered the black/blue/splash and white + non-white = ??? questions. Then a couple of years ago an oops hatch between one of my silkies and a silkieXd'uccle produced a dun cockerel.
After realizing what he was (for the longest time I called him "not-white," and my husband called him "your pink bird" (his colouring as a young bird had a pinkish-brown cast), I decided to start back up on the chocolate project. Last year he produced two sons who have better colour, but unfortunately even less type. This year I've been working with the one with the better colour, pairing him with one of my typier black silkies.
I also acquired a pair of chocolate polish that I am crossing to black silkies. I am pretty sure that the chick is the grandchild of the dun sport. I also have some of what I believe are the silkieXpolish birds, but they are still F1, so no silkie feathering yet. Their colour has less yellow than the chick I posted. Here is the original dun sport:
The dun spots on his saddle just developed this year--interesting and unusual. Here is his son that I used for the F2 generation:
They were a dark brownish black with grownish undercoat. I had NO idea what to call them. When I later discovered that chocolate was a colour, I tried breeding for it without a lot of success--most of the offspring were similar--a brownish black. I pretty much gave up on working on it, although I did still hatch an occasional chocolate bird--note that at that point I was still pretty unknowledgeable about poultry genetics, although I had mastered the black/blue/splash and white + non-white = ??? questions. Then a couple of years ago an oops hatch between one of my silkies and a silkieXd'uccle produced a dun cockerel.
After realizing what he was (for the longest time I called him "not-white," and my husband called him "your pink bird" (his colouring as a young bird had a pinkish-brown cast), I decided to start back up on the chocolate project. Last year he produced two sons who have better colour, but unfortunately even less type. This year I've been working with the one with the better colour, pairing him with one of my typier black silkies.
I also acquired a pair of chocolate polish that I am crossing to black silkies. I am pretty sure that the chick is the grandchild of the dun sport. I also have some of what I believe are the silkieXpolish birds, but they are still F1, so no silkie feathering yet. Their colour has less yellow than the chick I posted. Here is the original dun sport:
The dun spots on his saddle just developed this year--interesting and unusual. Here is his son that I used for the F2 generation:
