Partridge Silkie

[nzpouter]

Quote:
so your whites (at least one of them) is a dominant white? How's the leakage of colour looks on silkie? Does it make them looks like painted silkies? I only ever have them in smooth feathered birds.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Not true. White silkies are almost always recessive white, which requires two copies. Rarely, dominant white is present; however dominant white is very leaky. You will not get an entirely white bird with a single copy of the gene. The partridge offspring do not carry dominant white--it would show. If the white pen birds are completely white they MUST carry two copies of either or both dominant and recessive white.

If dominant white, all offspring would receive a copy, and assuming they did not from the other parent, red pigment would be present, but little or no black (which includes the brown feathering in partridges). This assumes that they do not carry two copies of recessive white, which would turn off all pigment.

There is no way that two whites will produce a non-white--somehow a coloured cock got to the white hens.

Getting partridge from blue/black/splash would be easier, genetically.

 

[trkcChick]

WOW! This can be complicated. I also have 3 other silkies from the same breeder that I bought. 2 of them seem to be gray, but have a tiny bit of brown on wing feathers. If the breeder doesn't have partridge does that mean that her BBS have the partridge gene? I would like to breed the ones I have, but not sure how to split them up.

So this is probably what I will keep -

- 2 grays that I already have
- 1 blue partridge that I already have
- 3 partridge chicks
- 1 Splash chick
- 2 Blue chicks

Do I put all partridge together and blue, gray and splash together?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Partridge is not a gene. It is a combination of genes. Do not mix greys with blues & splash unless you want messed up colours. Genetically grey and partridge are the same except for the Silver/gold gene. Greys are Silver; partridge are gold. Females will always be pure grey or pure partridge; males can be split.

 

[trkcChick]

This is the grays and partridge that I have. Would they be considered pure gray and pure partridge? and what do you get if you breed gray and partridge together? a mess?

 

[destiny_56085]

A colored cock cannot get to my whites. This has been happening for years to me. I had some silver gened whites out of Shorty Polston lines. These birds consistently threw greys. Two years ago I added some white pullets from Premier and all of a sudden I started to get partridge out of those old white cocks on my new pullets. These eggs are marked with a big W and are not coming from my blue or splashes. In the years past I've always sold the grey and partridge since I haven't been interested in breeding them.

My whites were not leaky in the fashion of 'painted' silkies. The extreme silver gene expression came out on some as a lilac undertone and a few pewter feathers in the tail if anything.

Here are an example of some of the greys that came out of my whites:

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Destiny, he looks to have some brown in his feathers? Or is that the lighting (since it appears on her a bit, too)?

Hens can only carry one copy of Silver/gold (silver and gold are different alleles of the same gene) since it is sex-linked. They are always pure, and always pass the gene they carry to their sons. Males carry two copies, which can be the same allele, making them pure for whichever allele it is, or two different alleles, in which case the dominance amonth those alleles determines expression. Silver is incompletely dominant. Silver is SS, gold is s+s+, golden is Ss+. Golden is not the clear white of silver, nor is it hte rich gold of gold. It is a creamier colouring.

A silver male will pass silver to all his offspring. If bred to a silver hen, all offspring will be silver. Likewise, a gold male passes gold to all his offspring and bred to a gold hen all offspring will be gold.

A golden male will pass gold to half his offspring and silver to the other half. His daughters will be pure for whichever allele he gives them; if bred to a gold hen, some males will be gold and some will be golden. Likewise, if bred to a silver hen, some will be silver and some will be golden.

If a gold male is bred to a silver hen, the daughters will be gold and the sons will be golden. If a silver male is bred with a gold female, the daughters will be silver and the sons golden.

 

[destiny_56085]

I may have whites carrying both in my flock then. I have 2 separate pens of just whites. I have my old birds that I know throw the greys. I kept back 8 pullets and 2 cockerels from the Shorty/Premier crosses and it is their pen throwing the partridge too. I know it is still occurring. Out of the over 80 chicks I've hatched since december, I have 7 partridge and 1 grey.

These 2 partridge also came out of my whites last year:
the cockerel...

the pullet...

And yes the lighting is off in the pic of the greys. They didn't have red in them at all. I found a couple of other pics of other greys my whites produced. Lots of variation in shades, but no red. These were just some I threw in the grow out pens to see what they would turn out like.

 

[destiny_56085]

Even more wierd... 2 years ago I had 3 red pyles pop up out of that same pen of old Shorty whites. Of course I sold them to pet homes. The 1 lady e-mailed me pics back of 1 of them full grown. Interesting.....

 

[robin416]

I have also had a gray hatch from my whites. I recently removed her pic from my web page. She looked very much like the last pic of Sonoran's gray. She just did not have the white hackles.