Needing Help With Silkie Genetics!

[Fur-N-Fowl]

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.

Ah right, Thankyou!
I've got a note book set aside with a few features wrote down already. Like you say it should come in handy when I'm hatching their chicks.
I'll most likely take photos of their chicks to keep a bit of s visual record.

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

Thankyou, that's cleared it up for me.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

Anyone got any idea what a porcelain x white would create?

And what a Silver partridge x white would create?

 

[nicalandia]

Anyone got any idea what a porcelain x white would create?

And what a Silver partridge x white would create?

White Silkies are Partridge underneath of the recessive white so any cross to partridge will result in more partridge(perhaps not as good color type as purposely bred partridges)

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

White Silkies are Partridge underneath of the recessive white so any cross to partridge will result in more partridge(perhaps not as good color type as purposely bred partridges)

With them being the silver partridge (grey) would they hatch out the brown partridge colour or have hints of the grey in them?

Do you have any guesses as to what the porcelain x white would hatch? I've been unable to find any info on what they'd produce.

I was originally wanting to get lavender and cross it with my white but there's a few issues with me being able to get one so I'm having to have thoughts on what other colour to get. I believe the lavender x white would produce black which is what I was hoping for.

 

[nicalandia]

With them being the silver partridge (grey) would they hatch out the brown partridge colour or have hints of the grey in them?

Recessive White Silkies can be Silver or gold based partridge, the only way to find out is if you cross a white with a silver partridge hen, if the pullets of that cross are gold partridge then the rooster is gold based, if they are silver partridge then the white rooster is silver

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

Recessive White Silkies can be Silver or gold based partridge, the only way to find out is if you cross a white with a silver partridge hen, if the pullets of that cross are gold partridge then the rooster is gold based, if they are silver partridge then the white rooster is silver

Ah right I see what you mean now, thankyou so much!

 

[msiler]

@nicalandia I am mostly experimenting with the Kippenjungle calculator here and what using what little genetic knowledge I have.
Doesn't porcelain have a double dose of the lavender gene? If that's the case then the chicks would all be lavender spilts and you could cross them and get a percentage of lavender silkies….
The calculator says that white x porcelain would result in black lavender/white splits, but I wasn't sure if that was correct or not.
What do you think?

And @Fur-N-Fowl , the calculator is here if you want to mess around with it. Just select the parents colors and then click "Calculate Crossing".
http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kipcalculator

 

[nicalandia]

Doesn't porcelain have a double dose of the lavender gene? If that's the case then the chicks would all be lavender spilts and you could cross them and get a percentage of lavender silkies….
The calculator says that white x porcelain would result in black lavender/white splits, but I wasn't sure if that was correct or not.
What do you think?

Porcelain in Silkies are basically gold partridge with double recessive lavender, eb/eb, s+/s+, lav/lav C+/C+ If you are going to cross them with recessive white you need to input this on the calculator eb/eb, s+/s+, Lav+/Lav+, c/c(c being recessive white and C+ being dominant non recessive).. The F1s will be eb/eb, s+/s+. Lav+/lav, C+/c, now cross them together with the calculator and you well see just how many you need to cress them together to get more porcelain. my best advised would be to just cross the F1s back to porcelain and keep in mind that you will have recessive white hidden on your line.

In the calculator you are using the pre-made template for dominant white, in this case build yourself the template for partridge and add c/c recessive white for it.

 

[msiler]

Oh got it, thanks! I will play with that...
But if you were trying to create lavender, would you be able to by crossing the splits back to the Porcelain parent? I get that you would be adding hidden genes, such as recessive white, into the line, but I they really wanted lavender than would it be a possibility?

 

[nicalandia]

This is how the calculator settings should look for white rooster and Porcelain.