Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

[moomoodiddy]

Hey y'all is this automosal barring and how will it affect paint breeding I know it's not dirt

 

[littlecritters]

Today I check him/her and his/ her wattles looked a lot better after I applied some vaseline on them. However, the skin on hi/her body seems very dry and flaky. I found the VetRX, the oatmeal shampoo, so now I just need the flea and tick shampoo. I will give him/her a bath tomorrow and hopefully it will get better. 

I think you will see a nice difference after the bath, and feel relieved.

 

[TNBarnQueen]

She looks blue to me with some gold leakage... but I might be wrong.

It was the lighting. She is black with the leakage and as she gets older there is more leakage coming through..so she may turn out more partridge after she molts.

 

[Keric]

Wow. So I hatched out my 6 eggs. 2 of them are... special. One flipping over and not correcting himself, and another with a clenched foot.

When I first came on this site and read about silkies I saw a lot about "toe placement." I thought "well that seems silly. As long as they have 5 toes... what else are you looking for???" My adult pet-quality silkies have perfect toe placement and that is why I didn't get it. I get it now that I hatched these guys out! Their extra toes are in so many different positions.


This one seems fine to me. The only thing I noticed with these guys is that they have their 5 toes, but the pinky toe on the outside of the foot seems to be disappearing in the breeding.


Same with this one. One of his extra toes doesn't have a toenail. His pinky toes on the out side are also very small.

This is the one with the foot. You can see how on the left side his last 2 toes are fused. Like a duck foot almost... On his other foot I don't know what is wrong but he keeps his toes clenched and limps on it. Should I cull? I don't want to get into showing or really breeding, but I would like to breed for fun and to sell some, and I wouldn't want this passing on! I am not encouraged enough to correct his foot.

A front view of his clenched toe.

I believe one of the other ones has her extra toes on top of each other, super close. Eric and I have decided that the fifth toe is basically a defect, and when you're breeding for defects, it's hard to get the defect the way you want it, and not completely messed up.

Any thoughts and comments will be appreciated

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hawk, I'm glad that you are up and moving. My doctor said it is taking people 3-4 weeks to recover from this super bug virus....

Thanks..I'm thinking I'm going to need all of those 4 weeks, I can't believe how sluggish I'm feeling.

Poulette...I have a beautiful black with buff leakage and it is a shame I am not going to be able to use her. She is probably one of my best pullets. But...that is how it goes sometimes. The woman she came from told me she would be fine. But I feel it would only be backing up. Thankfully I have 2 gorgeous deep black hens and MAYBE a little roo! Keeping fingers crossed.

Gold leakage... NOT buff. Your base colors are silver or gold, and that's it.

Well...not sure. I bought a dozen eggs from a woman and they where suppose to be paints and lavenders. Well....of the ones that hatched I got the 2 Buff ones in previous post a lavender and the black with the leakage. She doesn't have partridge. She said that they are techinically paints...but I don't know really what to think. It may be that only breeding and hatching their eggs are going to tell me anything. If you are familiar with paints is this right to have them turn out buff and black with buff around neck?

Paints are like wild cards-- just about anything can come out of them. But that means you have a whole mess of genes in the background that can come forward. Most people are very reluctant to use "standard" colors that come out of paint pens in their standard color pens.

Here is the pullet with the buff around her neck.

Your bird above is a black bird with very bad gold leakage. NOT a partridge. These are partridge: (I don't own this color, so this is from HatTrick)

Personally, I would not use your black with gold to breed with. Make a great pet or broody.

Question from a newbie, I was thinking bout getting small/medium birds in the spring/summer, (I have Coturnix quail ATM), is Silkie only for show, or is it a egg/meat bird?

Silkies make lousy meat birds, they are very small and are not a "dense" bird full of meat. I think you'd be very disappointed. They are also not great egg birds, they lay about every other day, and they are small eggs. The meat of silkies is black as are the bones. Silkies are ornamental (display) birds that are shown because of their plumage and type. If you want a small meat bird-- go with the Cornish bantams! They are super meaty! I like to joke they are meat walking around on chicken legs. They are also easy to work with, fairly docile. This is probably the most popular photo of dressed out Silkies: (yuck!) I wonder... how would you know when the meat is cooked all the way through?

Just wanted to add about this picture-- I believe this picture comes from Europe-- not here in the States. Our birds are bantams and are much smaller than what is pictured. The European birds are much larger.

Good to have you back! Did you get the flu shot?
Even paint to paint does not breed true and any number of odd colors can come from a paint pen.
I wouldn't use this color in breeding "porcelain" if you are talking about self-blue cream. It's commonly two copies of lavender and one copy of buff.

Thanks!! No, no flu shot. Honestly, I've never gotten the shot and have never really gotten the flu before now! My immune system is usually super strong and I rarely come down with anything. This was just insane. And to still be feeling shaky and dizzy after 3 weeks of it... crazy!!!

Agreed on the porcelain info Peep, I would never use that "black" bird. I believe they are wanting to call them Cream Blue now?? But to start out that color really requires very careful attention to what you are using in your pen. IF that is a color you want, I'd get a bird from someone that is already a few generations into it. I know several people working with them and have seen really good ones at shows. Christina had some NICE ones at Nationals.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

A partially white feather is not a dq in a buff bird. Only solid white.

 

[Keric]

Now, is porcelain related to buff? I liked the buff best, but after seeing porcelain I've changed my mind! Porcelain looks like a light buff. Would you get porcelain breeding a white to a buff? How does that work?

 

[ChicksNherps]

Now, is porcelain related to buff? I liked the buff best, but after seeing porcelain I've changed my mind! Porcelain looks like a light buff. Would you get porcelain breeding a white to a buff? How does that work?

I have an F1 porcelain hen, who was from partridge eggs with buff in the lineage, from what I understand, a porcelain breeder told me to breed her to a self blue male to get a more correct porcelain.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: This bird does not look sufficiently diluted to be porcelain (self-blue cream). Both gold and black pigment are insufficiently diluted. A self-blue cream (porcelain) has two copies of the lavender gene.

 

[ChicksNherps]

This bird does not look sufficiently diluted to be porcelain (self-blue cream). Both gold and black pigment are insufficiently diluted. A self-blue cream (porcelain) has two copies of the lavender gene.

Yeah I know, he said she looked like an F1, and when bred to a self blue should produce the Self blue cream. I talked to Marty macguire