show girl question

[kelliepulido]

So if you get show girl eggs to incubate is there just a 50% or so chance that they are actually show girls could they be nn or silkies? And if you breed show girl to show girl is there still just a higher percent chance of getting show girls but still could get silkie or nn?

 

[nnbreeder]

Right, you have it clear. Breeders have better quality birds when breeding Showgirls to Silkies. SG x SG will bring out too many of the NN traits and you will get a high percentage of non Silkie feathered birds. I've had my best luck with a SG rooster over Silkie hens. In that mating you will get about a 50/50 split of SGs and Silkies.

 

[LilPeeps]

Quote:
Breeding sg x sg will NOT give you ANY smooth feathered birds. Silkie feathering is recessive, so breeding sg x sg would give you 100% silkie feathering.
If your sgs are heterozygous for the nn gene (one copy) and you breed them with another het sg you would get: 25% silkie (no nn gene), 50% het sg (1 copy), and 25% homozygous sg (2 copies).
If you breed a het sg x silkie you would get 50% silkie, 50% het sg.
If you breed a silkie to a homo sg you'll get 100% het sg. het sg x homo sg will produce 50% het sg, 50% homo sg.

The way you can tell whether the sg is het or homo for the nn gene is to see if it has a "bowtie": if it does, its heterozygous, and if it doesn't, its homozygous.

If you're looking to improve type, I'd suggest breeding a sg to a good silkie and going from there