Lavender Silkies

[ewachacha]

Hey y’all! I am curious how I may go about creating lavender colored silkies when I don’t actually have any lavenders. I do have some splashes though. I look forward to your responses. Thank you!

 

[LynnaePB]

Lavender is a recessive gene that dilutes other colors. To make lavender you have to have the gene already present in your stock. If you'd like to breed lavender silkies (called self blue in silkies) your best bet is finding someone who breeds self blues and buy hatching eggs, chicks, or started birds from them.

If you just want a light blue colored silkie somewhat similar to lavender you could breed blues and select the lightest colored ones. The splashes will come in handy for breeding blues. You can breed them to blue or black (if you breed them to black it is best to get the black from a blue/black/splash pen so you get silver based black rather than gold).

If you breed your splashes to a black you should get all blue offspring. If you breed your splashes to a blue you should get 50% blue and 50% splash offspring. Blue is rather variable in how dark/light it is. I suspect if you keep back only the light blues to breed you would be more likely to get more light blues though.

Breeding blues will give a variety of colors due to the nature of the genes involved.

Blue x blue = 25% black, 25% splash, 50% blue

Blue x splash = 50% blue, 50% splash

Blue x black = 50% blue, 50% black

Splash x splash = 100% splash

black x black = 100% black

splash x black = 100% blue

 

[ewachacha]

Thank you! What do you think would happen if my split to paint reproduced with my splashes? I’m all about experimenting with colors and outcomes.

 

[LynnaePB]

Thank you! What do you think would happen if my split to paint reproduced with my splashes? I’m all about experimenting with colors and outcomes.

That depends on what color it is. You can have white or black from paints. A lot of people call them white split to paint or black split to paint but that would indicate that paint was a recessive gene that they could carry which isn't how paint works. It is thought by most that paint works with dominant white over black neither being recessive.

If your silkie is a white from paint it is carrying two copies of dominant white and will give one copy to any offspring it has. If paired with a splash you should get paints that now also carry blue from your splash so blue paints. They'll all genetically be blue paints and will likely have blue spots but if they are poorly marked some may look all white.

There is also a chance if your bird is a white from paint that it actually is genetically a paint and it is just very poorly marked in which case if bred to splash you'd get both blue paint and blue offspring.

If your silkie is a black from paint it should have similar results to breeding with a black. So you should get 100% blue offspring from the pairing. There have been a few anomalies with black from paint where you still get paint offspring from them, this is rare however. My guess is occasionally a bird is born genetically paint but something somehow inhibits the white so it appears black but still breeds as a paint would.

In my examples I'm assuming your silkie from paint is black based like paints are bred to be. Sometimes other colors can be hiding in a paint line as it is a fairly new color. Blue, partridge, and recessive white all could potentially be hiding and not worked out yet by the breeder. Blue doesn't exactly hide like the others but since blue can be so dark as to look black at times it can go unnoticed. Partridge and recessive white both need two copies to show. If your silkie happened to carry either of those they shouldn't show in the offspring if bred to your splash as long as your splash wasn't also hiding a partridge or recessive white gene (less likely that it would be if coming from a breeder who keeps colors separate). Later on down the line when those recessive genes match up in two birds bred together those recessive colors could start popping up though.

Paints and black and whites from paints can have gold or silver ground color (or sometimes both in males). The ground color may also affect the color of the offspring. If you bring gold into the blues I'm not exactly sure how it'll look. I have a blue from a paint to splash breeding that I suspect may be gold based and after a while (over 6 months old) she got a brown/gold tint to her. Gold based recessive whites are prone to yellowing while silver based usually stay a nice crisp white. I suspect bringing in gold to blues would be similar where the gold based would be prone to yellowing. I could be wrong about that though, I have very little experience with ground color and blues as I breed paint mostly.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. Genetics can get a little complicated at times and I may have added more details than was needed.

 

[ewachacha]

Thank you. I’m following. I need a clear way to figure out how to tell if they’re silver based. Just by looking at my black split it appears to have a silver / gray hint to it. It’s not quite a month old yet?

 

[LynnaePB]

Thank you. I’m following. I need a clear way to figure out how to tell if they’re silver based. Just by looking at my black split it appears to have a silver / gray hint to it. It’s not quite a month old yet?

Ah good, glad I didn't make it too confusing!

I wish it were easy to tell the base. In blacks it isn't easy. If they are male and happen to get leakage in the hackles when they get older that is a good way to tell. If the leakage is gold than they are gold based. If it is silver than they are at the very least carrying one copy of silver. Males can carry 1 silver and 1 gold and when they do it lightens the gold to an almost silver color but might look a little yellow. I recently read something about the ones carrying both silver and gold being less prone to leakage. So if you see obvious gold or silver leakage it is probably either completely gold or silver based (that is if what I read was accurate, it come from a pretty knowledgeable breeder so I think it should be).

Ground color is also sex linked. Males carry two copies, females only one. The father is the one who determines the ground color of his female offspring. The male offspring get one copy from the father and the other from the mother.

If you used a splash rooster and your black from paint happened to be a girl you should get all silver based female offspring from that pairing assuming the splash is silver based which they should be bred to be I believe. If the black does turn out to be gold based and female than the male offspring from that pairing would be golden (carrying both silver and gold).

Pretty much all my blacks from paints so far seem to have a silvery/gray under color when young. I'm not sure if it gives much of a hint as to what their ground color is.