Partridge Silkies - Nothing else

[Cetawin]

Thanks penne my birds are not SQ, one girl is but their parents are SQ. I am breeding mine looking for a good male and couple good pullets to put together some breeding. The two partridges pictured above are from a different line to help mix it up. But I do not know their sex yet.



Oh and I have 2 white silkies from eggs purchased....one of them is definetly male and has a single comb....what does that come from and what would you do with the bird? Also would its hatchmate carry a single comb gene?

 

[pennie1]

Quote:
Definitely go with darker partridge babies. If you look at the SOP you will see that it calls for a dark/black under fluff, chest and belly.
As far as the single comb goes. I am out of my league on this one and my answer will probably be dead wrong (Sonoran where are you?) but if the 1 has a single comb I would say that all of its hatchmates would carry the gene recessively. I would not breed it and if you are keeping these as pets - no big deal. I personally would sell it or give it to a good home. I wonder if they had been a project of someone and when trying to get back to the Silkie, kept the recessive single comb gene. I would probably contact the person that I got them from and ask them about it. If they are a reputable person they should have an answer for you and maybe even replace the eggs or chicks. I would be a little miffed.

 

[Cetawin]

I plan on doing that. Just wanting to make sure I am seeing a single comb...will take pic later for you all to see.

 

[vartyskiss]

Hi this is my first posting and I would just like to say I love reading all the post's. My first 3 chickens were my babies and when a fox took 1 and mauld another one who then died in my arm's, I was deverstated. Luckily my light suffok Miss Daisy lived through it all. We let her get over the shock and now we have just bought 2 new chicken's, a bluebell called penny and a black rock now called sam. They seemed to get on together ok and then last night my neighbour asked me to take one of their chickens who is being bullied by the rest of her flock, fingers crossed it will settle in as easily as the others, I will let you know.

 

[pennie1]

Welcome aboard!!!! So sorry to hear about your fox issues. It's always so sad when something like that happens. I'm sure that we all wish you the best of luck. BUT(!!!) I have to tell you something.. You have not owned a chicken until you have owned a Silkie. Some people disagree, but it's true. I am a convert from the usual chicken breeds; if fact I still have a few normal chickens, but most of us have just fallen head over heels in love with these little birds. But we will give you a chance to get your feet wet before we really start on you.

 

[pennie1]

Quote:
That's a good idea. Pictures are worth a 1000 words (who said that?). It's funny, I was just thinking about your issue before I sat down at the computer. The link below might help and then there is the post back in August of 2010

http://www.browneggblueegg.com/Article/IdentifyingSilkieCrossChicks.html

Index
» What Breed Or Gender is This?
» My silkie hen crowed..... Is she a roo? SILKIE EXPERTS UNITE!!! This post was on 8/9/2010. Maybe it could help. I think that I was right on about it though.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Agree; the darker one has the more correct colour. Since both parents were white, I would say that this is one of those rare cases where you have a pretty good idea of what genes the white is carrying. Breeding back to partridge should get you more partridges--or possibly more whites, lol!

 

[pennie1]

Suze, I love it that you check in every now and then because I am really uncomfortable about the gene stuff!!! I would really appreciate it if you could make a daily fly by (

) to correct all of the errors I know that I will make... Thanks so much.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Definitely go with darker partridge babies. If you look at the SOP you will see that it calls for a dark/black under fluff, chest and belly.
As far as the single comb goes. I am out of my league on this one and my answer will probably be dead wrong (Sonoran where are you?) but if the 1 has a single comb I would say that all of its hatchmates would carry the gene recessively. I would not breed it and if you are keeping these as pets - no big deal. I personally would sell it or give it to a good home. I wonder if they had been a project of someone and when trying to get back to the Silkie, kept the recessive single comb gene. I would probably contact the person that I got them from and ask them about it. If they are a reputable person they should have an answer for you and maybe even replace the eggs or chicks. I would be a little miffed.

Since the eggs were purchased, you really don't know whether all the eggs came from the same two parents, so predicting whether the other birds from those eggs have the genes for a single comb is not reliable. Now if you know that person sent only eggs from one breeding pair, you could make a more accurate guess.

Single comb is the absence of both pea and rose comb genes:

p+/p+ r+/r+ = single comb
P/p+ r+/r+ = pea comb
P/P r+/r+ = pea comb
p+/p+ R/r+ = rose comb
p+/p+ R/R = rose comb
P/p+ R/r+ = walnut comb
P/P R/R = walnut comb

Depending on which of these each parent has, you can determine the probability for each comb type in their offspring

 

[pennie1]

Hey Suze, I have a question. What do you think of this cockerel? He's 4 months old. You can't see the penciling on his wings, but it's there.