PAINT SILKIES!?!?!

[Poulets De Cajun]

Quote:
Well they aren't good according to AMERICAN standards, because we've been pre-programmed to throw out anything with a red comb. But after learning that there isn't any possible way to get the red combs out, people should put more emphasis on type rather than comb and skin color.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I've seen cuckoos with dark combs--they aren't black, but definitely dark enough to be considered mulberry, not red.

The gene for barring and the gene for dark skin are very, very close together on hte chromosome--so the alleles for these genes that a bird carries will almost always both will be inherited together. On very, very rare occasions only one will be inherited--this is called crossover. Once you have it, it will stay, crossing back requires the same very small chance.

Last year I bred a cuckoo pullet who had a mulberry comb and dark skin. Her type wasn't great, but not bad, either. A better pet quality bird, or possibly a fair breeder quality.

The year before I bred a crele cock; he is a sweetie, but his comb is red, red, red. Both have new homes where they are well-loved pets.

 

[Jeff9118]

This color is called erminette. To create this color you cross a true white silkie with a true black silkie. True means no other color in the background. At least 5 generation of solid white or black. Black is dominent so most chicks will come out solid black but a few should be Erminette AKA painted. Crossed back to black you will get some black and some that have a 50/50 pattern (flowered mottled look). The reason these are so difficult to make in silkie is because it is hard to find true blacks. Tip: If your blacks sunburn or get a brown or chocolate cast to areas after spending alot of time in the sun they are not true blacks. I am not an expert on silkies but just know how to create the color. If white silkies were derived from black then this may not be as easy as most true whites in most breeds have red combs a wattles with light beaks and legs. It should give you somewhere to start though if you want to try.

If you want to do a cukoo Silkie project. Find the best typiest barred cochin bantam and the largest crested muffed round Black silkie you can find. ( Best to use one with exagerated features)Cross the 2 and since barred is dominet most should come out with the barred color. Choose the ones that have the most Silie characteristics; walnut comb, crest, muffs 5th toe dark skin ect. It is very unlikley that any will have silkie feathering. Now cross the offspring back to black silkie and again most will still be barred. You may get some with silkie feathering this time. Again keep the ones with the most Silkie characteristics and cross them back to black silkies once more. You should still get some barred that look like cukoo silkies. Cross back to each other for 5 generations and they will breed true. To improve you can continue to cross to black but will get less and less defined barring the more you cross. Tip Cochin bantams are similar to body type as sillkies. Start with them and you will not have to worry about breeding for round bodies.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

By true black, do you mean E? What do you mean by true white? cc or II? White silkies are cc; it is the original silkie colour.

 

[Jeff9118]

Lets keep it dumbed down as I feel if you get to technical it deters people from attempting projects and I am no geneticist. True black would mean black with no underlying color except maybe blue. For example if I have a Black silkie and its parentage included 1 buff sillkie crossed to a black silkie and the offspring was solid black then it would carry the recessive gene buff and would not be a true black. One thats family tree goes several generations back of solid black would have the least chances to haveing other underlying color genes.

As a kid me and my best bud (Knippk on BYC) were always doing projects and competing with each other from about age 10. Back then we guessed and used common sense. After the internet was invented in our late teens we were able to read why the same combination worked for him and not for me and vice versa. We may have not have used the same breeds but the same rules should apply. My experience is from actually doing and not from reading.

Just wanted to show anyone can do this.

By the way your Avatar(Sonoran Silkies) has to be one of the best silkies I have ever seen. Very pretty

 

[Krys109uk]

There is an incompletely dominant gene Erminette which is said to express like this when heterozygous. The bird is said to black, as in extended black, in its absence & completely white when homozygous. For this reason it has since been suggested that Erminette could be an allele of dominant white. Unfortunately when it was investigated it wasn't tested to see whether it was an allele to dominant white.

 

[KattyKillFish]

if you bred a cuckoo silkie w/ a red (buff?) would you get a sex link silkie??? am i being ridiculous?

also, i actually kinda like cuckoo's comb... it makes em cuter, i think.

 

[nzpouter]

Quote:
it will be sex link as barring is a dominant sex link gene (I assume red roo with cuckoo hen?).

The comb on that cuckoo is walnut, the proper silkie comb.

 

[KattyKillFish]

jeez, i know so little about Silkies aside from what i learned from people here on BYC. i really like the cuckoo silkies. I've had black & blues before when i was really little. (i just pulled those pics off the web)


now wouldn't a sex link silkie be something neat?

 

[nzpouter]

not really... depends what you want to breed.... since on that cross, all cuckoo will be roosters...