Please explain paint genetics!

[Elliemae1984]

Help! I need a crash course in paint breeding for dummies!

I have some ~22 week old silkies I hatched this summer and I’m trying to determine which ones to keep to set me up with the best first-round for paint breeding. But I’ve read a lot of conflicting info regarding black vs “black split”, and I have leakage in my blacks…so I’m not sure how that would affect future breeding. I want to make sure I keep the “best” male for my goals.

The breeder that I got the hatching eggs from said they were from a paint pen, but given the leakage (and that I hatched 2 splash), that can’t be entirely true. This breeder also does BBS and has a “silver partridge” project pen.

Currently I have:
- white female (no idea if dominant or recessive)
- black female with decent amount of silver/grey leakage at neck
- black male with minimal silver leakage at neck
- black male with A LOT of gold leakage at neck (and starting at crest)…but the girls definitely love him
- splash male (will be rehoming)
- splash….maybe male (DNA test pending, will rehome if male)
- paint with minimal khaki leakage (likely female, DNA test pending)

I have an opportunity to offload some males (in a way that doesn’t result in them becoming soup) but I need to decide quickly - the person who will take them to a bachelor pad is passing through town next weekend.

Which male(s) would you keep to have the best results for a future paint coop? I’m so curious about the effects of leakage (silver and gold). Will it eventually breed out? I’m truly a newbie and don’t want to make the wrong choice.

 

[Amer]

Breed the black male with minimal silver leakage with the paint female. This will produce blacks and paints. The blacks may have minimal silver or yellowish leakage. The leakage will be harder to see on paints. Just breed for cleaner coloring and it will breed out. If you plan to do an extended project and breed it out, inevitably some of your future birds will have to become soup though, I'm afraid. There won't always be a convenient out.
Also, just so you know, since paint is incompletely dominant, black cannot be split to paint so it doesn't matter if the black you are using came from a paint pen (unless you are going for a specific expression of paint like more or less black.)

 

[Elliemae1984]

Breed the black male with minimal silver leakage with the paint female. This will produce blacks and paints. The blacks may have minimal silver or yellowish leakage. The leakage will be harder to see on paints. Just breed for cleaner coloring and it will breed out. If you plan to do an extended project and breed it out, inevitably some of your future birds will have to become soup though, I'm afraid. There won't always be a convenient out.
Also, just so you know, since paint is incompletely dominant, black cannot be split to paint so it doesn't matter if the black you are using came from a paint pen (unless you are going for a specific expression of paint like more or less black.)

Thank you!! The split black thing was really confusing to me (and all of the illustrated “breeding charts” specify split black).

And I know we will have soup birds on our hands (already had 3 this year lol) but i cant pass up a golden opportunity to save even 2!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The 'black split' charts and other pages referencing 'black splits' are from when Paint first started being bred in Silkies and people thought there was a 'paint gene' that the birds carried that caused the pattern. We now know that the pattern is simply the result of the co-dominance of the dominant white gene, basically it allowing base color flecks to 'leak' through when heterozygous for the gene, so those charts and pages are incorrect and unfortunately cause quite a lot of confusion about the variety.

 

[Elliemae1984]

The 'black split' charts and other pages referencing 'black splits' are from when Paint first started being bred in Silkies and people thought there was a 'paint gene' that the birds carried that caused the pattern. We now know that the pattern is simply the result of the co-dominance of the dominant white gene, basically it allowing base color flecks to 'leak' through when heterozygous for the gene, so those charts and pages are incorrect and unfortunately cause quite a lot of confusion about the variety.

That makes a lot of sense. I kept seeing those charts thinking “but paint isn’t a distinct gene”…but I figured I was misinterpreting things because I’m very green when it comes to chicken genetics.

Thank you for explaining!

 

[hehahn]

That makes a lot of sense. I kept seeing those charts thinking “but paint isn’t a distinct gene”…but I figured I was misinterpreting things because I’m very green when it comes to chicken genetics.

Thank you for explaining!

I have talked to a lot of master breeders of Paints at shows and some of them hold that it DOES matter if your black is out of paint lines or not.
I’ve bred them for several years now and have concluded that they are right in choosing the best blacks out of those lines to bring out better and larger spots. What we don’t know is all of the genes and possible intensifiers that are associated with the dominant white gene to make paints.
Often there are things present that we aren’t aware of that make a difference and so we aren’t sure of the genotype, only the phenotype (what you see).
Genetics is a fascinating roll of the dice!