Self Blue (Lavender) Silkie Thread

[trisha19]

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2 are around 3 months old give or take and the other 6 are about 1 month old.

 

[bacres]

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You should breed the showgirls with the silkies. It give the showgirls much better feathering.

Will it hurt the feathering of the silkie offspring that you get or is it a way to have a varity and not as many pens?

Anyone?

 

[BetsyOK]

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Will it hurt the feathering of the silkie offspring that you get or is it a way to have a varity and not as many pens?

Anyone?

The naked neck gene is dominant, so if the offspring are nn, they can be carrying both nn genes, or one of each. You won't be able to tell from their appearance. If they are silkies, they ARE silkies and don't carry the nn gene. As I understand it, if you don't breed Showgirls back to Silkies every so often, the offspring resulting from SG to SG will become more and more naked, all over their bodies, and the males will get more and more redness in their naked necks. I've seen that in my own birds, so believe it to be true.

 

[LilPeeps]

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Will it hurt the feathering of the silkie offspring that you get or is it a way to have a varity and not as many pens?

Anyone?

You can breed silkies and showgirls in the same pen. It is not like mixing colors where you will mess up a line by interbreeding them. Showgirls are silkies with the NN gene. When a bird possesses the gene, even a single copy, it is visible in the bird. Often, although not always, a bird that is heterozygous (carrying one copy of the gene) will have a "bowtie" and birds that are homozygous (two copies) will be clean necked. When a het showgirl is bred to a regular silkie, you will get 50% regular silkies and 50% het showgirls. If you breed het sg x het sg, you will get 25% silkie, 50% het sg, 25% hom sg. If you breed het sg x hom sg, you'll get 50% het sg, 50% hom sg. If you breed hom sg x silkie, you'll get 100% hom sg. Hope that helps.


edited because I can't spell..

 

[bacres]

So are Showgirls an official breed yet? What colors do the come in. Can both the Heterozygous and Homozygous SG be shown?

 

[BetsyOK]

Showgirls now come in just about all the colors regular Silkies do. White, Black, Buff, Blue, Splash, Partridge, Gray, a VERY few baby lavenders--have I left out any? Mine are in all these colors except lavender, and I'm hoping for lavenders either this season or next. Work is progressing toward having them named a breed. You can show both homozygous and heterozygous, but I doubt ANYONE would know which was which--they don't necessarily look any different. They also come in bearded and nonbearded, just as regular silkies do.

 

[bacres]

So in one pen I could have both white bearded silkies and white bearded showgirls and I would not mess anything up at all?

 

[Elite Silkies]

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Wouldn't mess anything up at all. Go ahead and get some of those Showgirls. They are awesome. They are my favorite. I am fixing to breed for Porcelain Showgirls.

 

[Luvducks]

Porcelain is so beautuful! bacres, how are your parants dealing with all of these chicks? Do they know about the eggs? Ha ha

 

[brenTx]

In my opinion you NEED to keep silkies in the breeding. If you start going sg to sg you end up with strippers.

They lose more and more quality and with that feathering. My goal was to breed to the very best type silkies I could find. I have two pens most years, this year I am starting with three, one with showgirl pullets/hens and a silkie rooster and then two with all silkies. I sold my breeding sg cockerel last season or I would have him in with silkie hens/pullets. It has been explained already but the naked neck is dominate so if you SEE IT, you have showgirls and if you don't...you have silkies.

I have my whites where I want them, extremely good wings, combs, toes and feathering. I have blue, black, splash and now lavenders. Buff was my orginal color attempt but for those of you who raise buff, they are HARD to get right. I only have one buff showgirl as of now and she is in a nice breeding pen of buffs. I will hatch some if I keep carrying this little hen in the breeding pen. So, you can mix a pen with them and all is well. You will get 50% showgirl, 50% silkies. I started breeding showgirls but with that I have aquired a nice group of silkies.

There is nothing cuter than a just hatched showgirl

The lavenders are stunning with the dark skin and light pastel color of lavender. I won't be selling lavenders till next fall and that is IF things go right. I should get these started lavs breeding back to lavender in a few months and then the progress should pick up.

All showgirls show AOV in the silkie breed. I feel since you need to keep breeding back to silkies they might need to be recognized as another variety of silkie rather than a new breed. I think of it like frizzles, in that you don't want to breed a frizzled back to a frizzled but a hard feathered bird. AND there are frizzled showgirls as well as silkies.