Porcelain Project

[MumsyII]

Most Porcelain threads for Silkies on the forum seem dead or dying and because I'm late to the party, it seems logical to start new.

Many excellent breeders are doing great things with this Silkie variety. I live on an island and acquiring the birds I need is not easy by any means. To breed Porcelain in a way that pleases me, using what I have in my flock is going to take some years of diligent pairing and careful record keeping.

I will lay out the project and it's progress here and would be happy for others to comment and share their successes and miss steps in their own efforts towards getting a beautiful Porcelain Silkie.

This is the formula I'll be using:

Light Partridge hen.


She was hatched from a Catdance egg purchased at the farm in March 2013.


She developed into this pullet.
I have no other Partridge Silkies.

She was put with a Porcelain Cock.


He was hatched in the same batch as the Partridge hen.


He developed into this cockerel. I have no other Porcelain Silkies.



I was given a tour of Catdance Farm by Karen Larson and saw the Porcelain pen he came from. It was awe inspiring.


Lavender Cock, Buff, and Porcelain hens.

The Partridge hen hatched seven lovely chicks from this Porcelain Cock. I no longer have him so one of these chicks will hopefully be a male worthy to keep my Porcelain project going.



I will breed the best male from these to my only Lavender Silkie hen. She also was hatched from the same batch of Catdance eggs.





Day old female Lavender chick.

.
She is now a year and a half old and just started laying. I have no other Lavender Silkies.

So...This is the plan for the project.

Please feel free to comment, share, or advise. I know it is a long shot but I've got the time and gumption to follow through.

 

[MumsyII]

The first offspring from the first mating are about four weeks old. Hatched May 28.
Each has been banded and recorded in the journal.




Chick #1



Chick #2



Chick #3



Chick #4
I like this chick but the green zip means something is less than desirable with toes. It has a crab claw forth and fifth on the right foot. Both have toe nails.

These four chicks are closest to looking Porcelain and show definite lavender and buff coloration from the Porcelain sire.



Chick #5 looks more like the Partridge hens coloring.



Chick #6 looks like a darker version of chick #5.



Chick #7 is a pretty chick but has four toes on the right foot. Not going to put it in any breeding pen but will grow it out to document it's progress in color and type over all.

 

[MumsyII]

Porcelain is Self Blue (lav/lav) x Buff and has been called Blue Cream, Self Cream or Porcelain. If and when I want to show the results of this breeding, I will enter them as Blue Cream if that is what the con-census for name is for the variety. Porcelain is what I call them for now.

The first Silkies of this variety I ever saw and fell in love with were Karen Larson's birds. It is what I saw in her pens that I would like to see in my pens.

This is the the ideal that I would like to achieve in color. Getting the type out of the birds I have will be the more difficult achievement for the first few generations. I don't have a lot to work with starting out with only two birds for my F1 pen. And only one of the pair came from Porcelain breeding. Eight chicks for my F1 is certainly a low number but it is what it is.


This is taken from my personal copy of the Bantam Standard of Perfection. An old copy, I know. This is non bearded and I raise Bearded. But that is the type I fell in love with when I saw Silkies for the first time in 1989.


This is the ideal color and type from Karen Larson breeding that I would like to achieve someday. It will take some hard work on my part to get something close to this. Lot's of studying and hard culling.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

WOW! That little four toe is a little doll!

That is the same photo that I use as my ideal. That should be listed in the silkie dictionary of perfect porcelain self blue!

Here is a couple of shots of my porcelain self blue hen that I hatched from CatDance eggs. I hope it is ok that I post here in your thread. If not just let me know and I will remove them.

 

[MumsyII]

Gosh! She is gorgeous! And you can certainly post your Porcelains here and anything else you think would be helpful.

That little four toed chick is really eye catching in the group. If it is a pullet and has better type than any other, I will be forced to use her. Her coloring at this young age is really a soft blend of buff and lavender.
It will be a while before I can make the trip back to Catdance Farm to purchase more eggs. Shipped eggs arrive scrambled to my island post. I have had much better success picking up eggs fresh from her farm.

It's a four hour drive plus ferry trip from where I live.

Thank you for commenting. I was beginning to hear crickets. Hah!

 

[Fur N Feathers]

Thank you!

OK I will post then. I had only two marked porcelain and two marked lavender hatch from my eggs from Karen. I was pleased since they traveled so far across the country!!! I have pictures of them when they hatched and beyond.

I don't know why the porcelain threads aren't more active. I love the color myself, in fact, of all the silkie colors, it is my favorite.

 

[MumsyII]

Thank you!

OK I will post then. I had only two marked porcelain and two marked lavender hatch from my eggs from Karen. I was pleased since they traveled so far across the country!!! I have pictures of them when they hatched and beyond.

I don't know why the porcelain threads aren't more active. I love the color myself, in fact, of all the silkie colors, it is my favorite.

I had two of each as well but now only have the one Lavender hen. She is a year and a half old and just started laying. The males don't like her and I have yet to see one mate her. She is a beautiful color but a strange little chicken. I named her 'Shreek' because that's what she sounds like. All. The. Time. She went broody quickly after laying and then stopped mid way through. I'm hoping she will still be fertile when I have another Porcelain male.

Have you heard about Lavender being difficult as far as fertility is concerned? If I can't get her to cross into my program, I'm sunk until I can get more eggs from Karen Larson. Mail gets held up in Seattle before it gets to Whidbey Island. You are a lucky duck to have a good hatch.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

It was considered a good hatch as far as shipped eggs go I guess. Out of two dozen eggs, the first time 8 made it to pipping. Two didn't survive hatching. Six hatched, but one of the lavenders died. Then one of the porcelains died. The second two dozen I got from her, only one hatched which is the porcelain hen above. So, I really haven't had that great of luck with shipped eggs either. I am thankful for the five that made it to adulthood.

No, I haven't really heard of a fertility problem with the lavenders. My boy seems to be good and fertile. I get a lot of nice babies from him, even with lesser quality hens. Though I do have someone that questions if he is lavender.

I have heard that they are difficult to hatch, and difficult to survive beyond a few days old though. The lavender thread has kind of died also.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

This is the original 6 CatDance hatch. That is a little porcelain roo in the center. The two lavenders babies out front. One paint female in the rear and of course two partridge girls off to the side. One thing about CatDance babies, I can sex them as soon as they dry off! Have you found that to be the case with yours?

These are all pictures of the little porcelain boy.

This is the lavender rooster.

This is the porcelain hen I first listed here in your thread. She is the one and only of the second CatDance hatch.

 

[MumsyII]

This is the original 6 CatDance hatch. That is a little porcelain roo in the center. The two lavenders babies out front. One paint female in the rear and of course two partridge girls off to the side. One thing about CatDance babies, I can sex them as soon as they dry off! Have you found that to be the case with yours?


This is the porcelain hen I first listed here in your thread. She is the one and only of the second CatDance hatch.

Oh my! You just made my day! Love love love all your pictures. This one with the mushroom is to die for!

Here is a picture of my hatch. I brought home two dozen eggs straight from her farm and put them right into my Genesis. Twelve hatched. None of the eggs marked BlS were fertile. I thought at first BlS meant Blue Splash but now I think it might have meant Split. I'll have to look back at my journal. Can't remember tonight.


Two dark Blue, Two Partridge, two Lavender, two Porcelain, two Buff, one Paint and one White. Most of them died before I got a chance to breed them. They were amazing and the Lavender that died of sickness was a gorgeous male. They were not strong enough to survive. I tried my best too.

I have never had any of these colors in Silkies except the White. I had no idea until they were around three to four months old what their sexes were.

Now I have good images and records of what I had and could get a better idea next time around.

The Porcelain and Lavenders are like nothing I've ever seen. Ever. Gorgeous birds. I see my ideal birds in my dreams. I hope I live long enough to have a wonderful pen of each.


This Lavender chick is the hen that I have now. I lost this Partridge when she was point of lay when one of the cockerels pecked her vaulted skull and gave her brain damage that was irreversible. I have the Paint still. I bred him to a white pen and got all colored chicks. Two Paints so far.


Buff from pen 2 and the Lavender that was male. Both Buffs died of distended crops. I swear. I had the worst luck with this batch of special chicks. Everything that could go wrong, did.