Partridge Sizzle?

[SunshineSilkies]

I have a beautiful black frizzle rooster that I penned up with a nice quality(not breeder quality) white silkie hen. I have hatched 3 clutches and all of the chicks have been black. Out of 12 chicks, 4 have been smooth and the rest frizzled but ALL solid black. Just hatched 2 of these little guys about 3 weeks ago. Looks like partridge to me, what do you think? Boy was I surprised since all of the other chicks have been black!!!!! On both of them, their wings are starting to frizzle! I guess I need to start studying chicken genetics.. The nice person I got the black roo from said the strain was originally from hatchery stock and my white silkie hen is from one of my white breeders...how could partridge have happened?

3 week old sizzle chick

These are from the same hatch.

 

[KellyHM]

Just b/c they're striped doesn't mean they'll necessarily come out partridge. They could just be a mixed color (like EEs that are striped) that is recessive in the parents. Can't wait to see what they look like when they grow up!

 

[walkswithdog]

LOL I had a sizzle start out partridge marked to become a gray mottled bird later. Partridge is sort of a default for "get ready to take pictures and wonder."

 

[SunshineSilkies]

Quote:
I hear ya!!!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The down patterns indicate the genes present in the bird. There are a number of slightly different chipmunk striped patterns that indicate different gene sets. The dots on the chick's head are indicative of e^b, the most common e-allele for silkies, regardless of variety. I believe the fact that the side stripes are white rather than yellow indicates silver gene--but distinguishing the exact patterns is something I am just learning. It does look like partridge striping to me.

Genetically partridge/penciling (in silkies) is e^b/e^b Pg/Pg.

Let's assume that for some reason your black and white parents were not e^b/e^b, but rather that at least one was E/e^b or E^R/e^b. e^b is the most recessive of e-alleles, thus all chicks that inherited any other e-allele would build its colour and patterns on that e-allele rather than on e^b.

Statistically 50% would inherit a more dominant allele. The other 50% (assuming that one parent is e^b/e^b) could be partridge depending on the gene combinations. If both parents have only one copy of e^b, then only 25% will inherit both copies necessary to build a partridge. Since out of 14 chicks only two have been penciled I'm going to hypothesize that both parents have only one copy of e^b, and that the more chicks you hatch from this pair, the closer you will come to having 25% penciled offspring.


Alternatively, rather than e^b being the determiner, it could be that the white parent has incomplete melanizing genes, and that the striped chicks inherited the not-melanized version of those genes whereas the blacks inherited the melanized versions.

I'm not sure what happens when an e^b based black carries Pg--either one copy or two. So that is a third possibility.