Needing Help With Silkie Genetics!

[h2oratt]

The person you bought your show birds from cant explain the genetics to you? How can you buy show birds if you don’t know what is behind them. They may not even breed true. Also need to know if they split to any thing.

 

[nicalandia]

Some traits I'm looking for help on are:

• Crest size (are larger ones dominant or smaller ones dominant?)
• Skin colour/wattles/comb (is black dominant or is mullberry dominant)
• Colour (is black dominant? How about Paint/Splash? What about blue?)
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Crest size as with many physical traits is a polygenic in nature(many genes at play, some recessive, some dominant),

the comb size, the walnut crest of the sikies is believed to be the mixture of two genes, the partial dominant pea comb(heterozygotes P/p+ have a rather floppy pea comb compared to the compact homozygous P/P birds), completely dominant rose comb(heterozygotes R/r+ are indistinguishable from homozygous R/R).

Skin color, Dark blue/Black is due to the combination of three genes, the dominant autosomal(not sex linked) white skin(W+), the recessive sex linked dermal melanin enhancer(id+/id+ for males, id+/- for females) and the dominant autosomal Fibromelanosis(Fm/Fm).. if a silkie rooster is crossed to a white skin/white shank pullet this will create a sex link cross(id+ vs Id), the pullets will inherit the id+/- from silkie rooster and Fm from silkie father this will yield a pullet with black skin.. the cockerels of this cross will be Id/id+, Fm/fm+, due to the dominant sex linked dermal inhibitor Id this will inhibit and restrict the expression of Fibromelanosis and this cockerels will have a white skin.

Black Silkies are based on the Extended black e allele, which is the most dominant of them all, the order of dominance is Extended Black(E)> Birchen(ER), Wildtype(e+), Wheaten(eWh), brown/partridge(eb), recessive wheaten(ey).

Dominant white(Paint) and Bule/Splash(Bl/Bl) will change the black feathers into a white bird with black flecks(for dominant white/paint) and blue/grey when using the /blueSplash gene.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

The person you bought your show birds from cant explain the genetics to you? How can you buy show birds if you don’t know what is behind them. They may not even breed true. Also need to know if they split to any thing.

When I got them I asked to make sure about colours as I wanted to know the basics.

They breed each colour in indervidual pens and are pure bred. They're award winning in hatching rare and pure bred chickens.

However, when I originally got them I had no intention of showing my Silkies but I did want to breed them. I was lucky in the fact that I chose birds that are of nice show standard without knowing (except my Cuckoo)

What do you mean by split?​

 

[nicalandia]

The person you bought your show birds from cant explain the genetics to you?

Most people, specially people that breed for show don't' have a clue on how genetics work, they just breed for type and color with very basic info.. they know that they should not cross different colors and that's about it

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

Crest size as with many physical traits is a polygenic in nature(many genes at play, some recessive, some dominant),

the comb size, the walnut crest of the sikies is believed to be the mixture of two genes, the partial dominant pea comb(heterozygotes P/p+ have a rather floppy pea comb compared to the compact homozygous P/P birds), completely dominant rose comb(heterozygotes R/r+ are indistinguishable from homozygous R/R).

Skin color, Dark blue/Black is due to the combination of three genes, the dominant autosomal(not sex linked) white skin(W+), the recessive sex linked dermal melanin enhancer(id+/id+ for males, id+/- for females) and the dominant autosomal Fibromelanosis(Fm/Fm).. if a silkie rooster is crossed to a white skin/white shank pullet this will create a sex link cross(id+ vs Id), the pullets will inherit the id+/- from silkie rooster and Fm from silkie father this will yield a pullet with black skin.. the cockerels of this cross will be Id/id+, Fm/fm+, due to the dominant sex linked dermal inhibitor Id this will inhibit and restrict the expression of Fibromelanosis and this cockerels will have a white skin.

Black Silkies are based on the Extended black e allele, which is the most dominant of them all, the order of dominance is Extended Black(E)> Birchen(ER), Wildtype(e+), Wheaten(eWh), brown/partridge(eb), recessive wheaten(ey).

Dominant white(Paint) and Bule/Splash(Bl/Bl) will change the black feathers into a white bird with black flecks(for dominant white/paint) and blue/grey when using the /blueSplash gene.

Wow Thankyou!

That's an interesting read I'll be sure to take some notes from that, especially that multiple genes can play a role in one feature!​

 

[nicalandia]

Wow Thankyou!

That's an interesting read I'll be sure to take some notes from that, especially that multiple genes can play a role in one feature!​

Could you please use left Alignment when posting? I would really appreciate that.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

Most people, specially people that breed for show don't' have a clue on how genetics work, they just breed for type and color with very basic info.. they know that they should not cross different colors and that's about it

Ah that's true!

At least for the majority of other people I know that show poultry.

They generally just stick to the rule of not crossing the colours and avoiding major faults in birds they have (as in they wouldn't breed them).

The place I purchased my Silkies from suggested I only breed same colour together if I'm wanting future generation show stock. They warned be about possible leakage of colour if I mixed them.

When I spoke to the judge at my last show he even agreed that breeding a 'perfect' pure show Silkie Hen with a 'perfect' pure show Cockerel can sometimes still provide you with 'incorrect' standard chicks. I was told it's all just trial and error with showing.

I may end up with 1 lovely show quality chick out of 20 or even more that aren't.

Edit: Of course I apologise​

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

I have another question about this now if anyone is able to help with it

When I get around to hatching some of my eggs, will the ones that turn out to be male inherit the fathers walnut comb? (As in, do they inherit it from the father alone or do the females play a role in this too).

All my pullets pretty much have no comb but the fathers that sired them all had the walnut combs.

I'm just curious to know, do the females also play a part in passing on this gene despite having no comb or does it come down to the father?

 

[jas humbert]

Yes, both parents play a role. Each bird has 2 genes for the feature in question- one inherited from each parent. Sometimes the most dominant gene shows completely and you may have no idea what is underneath, sometimes it is incompletely dominant- a mix of the two. Where it gets complicated is some genes are only expressed at certain times- only in the male, or only when modified by another gene, or may be inhibited by another gene. And there is often more than one gene in play. Everything from comb size/shape, feather color and pattern may have several genes and modifiers involved.
So for me, it has been best to start with as good of quality birds as you can find. If you use a breeder bird with some very poor feature, it might be improved in the offspring by breeding to better but the gene is still there and may haunt your breeding program by popping up every now and then in subsequent generations.

Of course, when you are starting out you often have too little information on what is in the bird's background and you can only go by what you see. Buying from a serious reputable breeder helps but if you are going to be in this long haul, keeping detailed meticulous records will help. Sooner or later you will have more birds than you can keep and knowing which birds produced which faults can help you make decisions. The two cockerels may look near identical at 4 months old but when you know one of their dads produces a lot of single red combs and one doesn't it makes it easier to decide which to keep when you retire the rooster with the perfectly nice comb that nonetheless throws a lot of single red combs.

 

[nicalandia]

When I get around to hatching some of my eggs, will the ones that turn out to be male inherit the fathers walnut comb? (As in, do they inherit it from the father alone or do the females play a role in this too).

Comb genetics are Autosomal in nature, inherited from both parents, pullets have smaller combs due to sex hormones.