Mottled Silkie Project, officially in Motion! *Photos!*

[msiler]

Ok, so I am so happy to be finally writing up this post. Last summer I decided to take on the challenge of creating my own mottled Silkies, from scratch. Yes, I did know that there were already Mottled Silkies out their (I have since accidentally acquired one of my own!), but I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could get there. I made advanced genetic trees and calculations and plotted out how many of what breed I would need.

First would be the Mottled Cochins, and since I was looking for them in the dead of winter, all the hatcheries were closed. Thanks to Backyard Chickens, I was put in contact with @honanbm who coordinated something with her friend to send me one dozen Mottled Cochin hatching eggs! I ended up purchasing a few more chicks once the hatcheries ended up opening. Flash forward to present age, I now have three Mottled Cochin hens. And of course when you want a boy you don't get one

Since we ended up with only Mottled Cochin hens, they were destined to be paired with my singular Black Silkie Rooster, Wilbur. I have another black cockerel of even better type than my current one that I am holding back as well.

Mottled Cochin girls:

 

[msiler]

Everything was running smoothly! But of course no breeding project is complete without some
setbacks.

In late July, started collecting more Silkie eggs than usual. The Cochins were hatched mid-February and I read that they don't start laying until they are 8 months old so I thought that the Silkies were just kicking it into high gear. As usual I collected them and then set them all in the incubator. I quickly found out, once I isolated the Cochins in another pen, that they were in fact laying quite early. And the unfortunate part is that their male hatchmate - a Black Frizzle - could very well be the sire of the chicks. On top of that, another Cochin that I purchased on a whim with the Mottleds could also be laying.

The potential crosses for these chicks could now be:
Silkie x Mottled Cochin
Silkie x Silkie
Silkie x Birchen Cochin
OR
Frizzle x Mottled Cochin
Frizzle x Silkie
Frizzle x Birchen Cochin


Frizzle rooster, Rascal:

Birchen (that is the color I ordered, she doesn't appear to be that and her quality is about half or less of the Mottleds:

 

[Crestcrazy2]

Yay I can't wait for it !

 

[msiler]

One chick has hatched and another is pipping! Now the guessing begins.

Personally, this chicks looks full Cochin to me. But, I have only raised a few cochins and don't honestly remember how they look as chicks. I have also never raised any Silkie/Cochin crosses so I'm not certain on specific traits that will show up as chicks.
This chick is definitely black. It has a black and pink beak and white tipped toes that fade to a darker grey. It has four toes on each foot and no signs of a vault.
Thoughts??

 

[Crestcrazy2]

One chick has hatched and another is pipping! Now the guessing begins.

Personally, this chicks looks full Cochin to me. But, I have only raised a few cochins and don't honestly remember how they look as chicks. I have also never raised any Silkie/Cochin crosses so I'm not certain on specific traits that will show up as chicks.
This chick is definitely black. It has a black and pink beak and white tipped toes that fade to a darker grey. It has four toes on each foot and no signs of a vault.
Thoughts??

View attachment 2287296View attachment 2287298View attachment 2287299

Honestly I have no idea cute chick

 

[luckiestck1]

Keeping going you can do anything you put your mind to, and that chick might be a cross with that the black skin. I've found with mine that around 8 week, you will start to see the blue spot on their necks that's a died give away for silkie blood. Not all chicks come out with the 5 toes and have the silkie look in the first few crosses. I've cross aracauna and silkies before and the chicks looks almost completely like aracauna, with four toes and the aracauna body type.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Everything was running smoothly! But of course no breeding project is complete without some
setbacks.

In late July, started collecting more Silkie eggs than usual. The Cochins were hatched mid-February and I read that they don't start laying until they are 8 months old so I thought that the Silkies were just kicking it into high gear. As usual I collected them and then set them all in the incubator. I quickly found out, once I isolated the Cochins in another pen, that they were in fact laying quite early. And the unfortunate part is that their male hatchmate - a Black Frizzle - could very well be the sire of the chicks. On top of that, another Cochin that I purchased on a whim with the Mottleds could also be laying.

The potential crosses for these chicks could now be:
Silkie x Mottled Cochin
Silkie x Silkie
Silkie x Birchen Cochin
OR
Frizzle x Mottled Cochin
Frizzle x Silkie
Frizzle x Birchen Cochin


Frizzle rooster, Rascal:
View attachment 2286187

Birchen (that is the color I ordered, she doesn't appear to be that and her quality is about half or less of the Mottleds:
View attachment 2286189

The last hen is actually a dark Brahma bantam.

 

[msiler]

The last hen is actually a dark Brahma bantam.

Oh my.... I don’t know how I never realized that!!! I even ordered a Dark Brahma bantam but I must’ve gotten it mixed up with the real Birchen Cochin who passed away not long after they arrived. Wow... thank you for clearing that up!

 

[msiler]

Keeping going you can do anything you put your mind to, and that chick might be a cross with that the black skin. I've found with mine that around 8 week, you will start to see the blue spot on their necks that's a died give away for silkie blood. Not all chicks come out with the 5 toes and have the silkie look in the first few crosses. I've cross aracauna and silkies before and the chicks looks almost completely like aracauna, with four toes and the aracauna body type.

That’s so great to here! I’ll type out my official update below that does explain a little more below my thoughts... but for future what do mean by a blue spot on their necks?

 

[msiler]

Update time!

All in all, fifteen chicks ended up hatching! It was roughly a 90% hatch rate so I am quite happy.
As more and more chicks hatched out there were some clear differences. About half of them looked like the photo that I shared above, and the other half has typical mottled down. I rehomed all of the black ones because their mother was not the Mottled Cochins, and kept all of the mottleds.
They are about two weeks now, and I don't think they are half Silkies for two main reasons.
1) About half of the chicks are frizzled. Definitely points to the busy-body Frizzle Roo.
2) The Mottled girls have been in with my black Silkie roo, isolated, for about a month now. I incubated a large number of eggs, expecting positive results, and every single egg is clear. So either my rooster is not doing his job or the girls want their Frizzle boy back and are expelling everything. I'm inclined to believe the former because my rooster has some issues He acts like he's monogamous... believe it or not.

I have one five month old black Silkie boy that I am now going to try in with the Mottleds. He is young, but he acts like such a grown up. I've seen him doing everything with the girls so I figured I'd give it a go since clearly the other pairing isn't working.


There always seems to be setbacks with these kinds of projects! I'm still so excited though.
I was lucky enough to hatch out a true Mottled Silkie from Sheri Minkner hatching eggs. She is a split though, so I will be crossing her with the F1 roosters from the initial cross. This is going to be a huge boost and I can cut out a huge number of generations with her influence.