Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

[Hawkeye95]

I just bathed my three girls for the show tomorrow and one of my blues have 6 toes...well at least a definate toe nail...not really a toe...I just don't know how I missed that...well she will not be going now and I am bummed I only have two to take...oh well...

My splash has a lot of waxy pins on her head when I was washing her and I couldn't get them off as I have no fingernails..not a good night...

the very fine dog grooming brushes that are all wire can help. Looks like a million metal pins on the brush. But don't try to get them all out or you can end up breaking them. But giving the bird a quick (lightly!!!!) brush can help a bit.

I gave a bath to my blue and supposed black and i could see the difference. I took some pictures of the black, let's see if you think the undercoat is black enough

These are all blues.... were you going to post a black too? And if one of these was supposed to be a black, then you have what I have! I have blues that "look" black, but they are not. I keep them and use them with splash to help darken up the spots and it has worked great! Unfortunately you will probably still end up breeding more dark blues that look black which is undesirable for showing. Blues should have a lighter body, darker head and hackles. I have gone on ahead and shown my dark blues at shows, but next to the correctly colored blues-- they will never do well. Also, a judge can spot a dark blue vs black.

I need some pointers on this guy. #1. I've never shown a silkie. Perpetration practice has commenced. I gave him his first bath today. I didn't place any emphasis on getting his color back bright white. I just wanted to get the first layer of yuck off from this week long rain and see how well he would tolerated being washed. I used dog wash. I've done my best at making sure he didn't have any possible DQ issues.

If you see any please let me know. I'm defiantly no expert on silkie breed standards. I did a bad job at getting all the soap out of this tail and he's a tad wet.

When I look up photos of breed standard I see these beautiful round puffs. I also see photos similar to his. I'm completely confused.

The tail worried me the most.

Compared to some, I'd say he's a bit leggy?

But I can't help but love his face!!!!

Should I even bother though? He was hatched July 9th. From what I read he may or may not be old enough.

Any tips & tricks on whitening his coat? How to manage his tail etc? Any advice would be a god send.

I'd put him at a pet quality. But that has nothing to do with him being a Non-bearded bird. If you like this look, always be sure that you are buying non-bearded silkies to work with. Mixing bearded and non is really a bad idea. His comb is on the red side, he has a long back and his tail is all hard feathers-- that was nothing you did in washing him. If anything, washing should bring out more fluff and fuzz. He also has next to no feathering down his legs and on his feet. His middle toe should be fully feathered. BUT-- I'd go ahead and take him to the show and learn! Maybe you can pick up a better bird there. Watch for all of those things I told you about. His tail and neck should be very close together showing little or no back at all. Or if you don't see anything there, look for good breeders who are breeding Non-bearded silkies. There are more people breeding bearded, so don't be confused. A bare face and visible wattles let you know that they are a non. They can be equally as stunning as a bearded silkie if they are well bred.
The Leggy look you're talking about is because he has the lack of feathering down his legs and feet. So I'd say he's not show quality or even breeder quality-- but like I said, GO to the show and learn, learn!! Talk to the other silkie people there and get ideas on where to go from here! You will not regret going. For whitening, I use ShoSno and it is a blueing shampoo. You suds it into the bird gently and then wait the 3 minutes it tells you to wait, and then rinse it out well. Don't leave it on longer or you could turn a bird purple. I even use this on my Splash birds to help get out any yellow from sunburn or food stains, etc. Works great. But you can buy any whitening shampoo for dogs that has blueing in it and it should work. The shampoo will be blue or purple.

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***Okay, I came back to edit this post to post a couple pictures of roosters I currently own. I just wanted to show you so you can see what I'm talking about. Look at their tails and their necks..... they are touching! NO back can be seen. This is what you want. Now, my first rooster is really too leggy-- you can see how he is lacking a bit in the tail and it kind of throws off the look under him. That's not quite where you want to be. The second picture of the splash boy-- THAT is where you want to be. He is round all over and no leggy legs and a nice full crest and tail. Keep in mind that Non-beared birds will still look like this! They will just have a cleaner looking face.

 

[cvchickies10]

Thank you! Even if he had met standard. I would still be looking for a better quality flock. So the very fluffy silkies are bearded? The photo I posted above of what I would like to have is a non, correct? How risky is it to buy from the show? I don't want to infect my flock with a sick bird. They are all allowed to free range. We have other birds so I may just have to take some of them and hang around the silki judging area lol. He's a lot more work to get ready so if he's only pet quality & will probably get DQ'd I'd rather just take one of my Others in his place lol. His tail didn't look like that until I washed him and didn't get all the soap out. We sell our feathers and have left soap in them when we clean them and they have the same "Krispy" effect lol but you are right. They are pin feathers.

What toe is missing feathers for future reference?

 

[cvchickies10]

This is almost identical to my bantam Cochin's body style wise. Bun on the back & very compact? The comb in aba calls for Walnut. I know red combs are DQ even though I've seen some pricy birds that the breeder purposefully bread in. Agh!! The deep red wine color of mine is undesirable as well I take it? Is there any way at all to tell if a chick will have these not so great traits (like tail pin feathers)? I know nothing about buying from a show and honestly until the whole family fell in love with our current birds we just looked for new chicks to have good health. Now we would love to be a part of the shows & that opens an entirely new can of worms. Your Roo looks fabulous!! This is the kind of body style I was hoping for with ours. Live & learn lol I'd probably take him anyways and just go with it but I talked with fritz about our daughters first junior entry and he mentioned there would be 2,000 entries. I'm going to go out and start collecting new prospects.. Sigh!

 

[Hawkeye95]

Thank you! Even if he had met standard. I would still be looking for a better quality flock. So the very fluffy silkies are bearded? The photo I posted above of what I would like to have is a non, correct? How risky is it to buy from the show? I don't want to infect my flock with a sick bird. They are all allowed to free range. We have other birds so I may just have to take some of them and hang around the silki judging area lol. He's a lot more work to get ready so if he's only pet quality & will probably get DQ'd I'd rather just take one of my Others in his place lol. His tail didn't look like that until I washed him and didn't get all the soap out. We sell our feathers and have left soap in them when we clean them and they have the same "Krispy" effect lol but you are right. They are pin feathers.

What toe is missing feathers for future reference?

Yes your bird is a Non-bearded silkie. And if he had a nice big crest and full big tail and had the shape of the ones I showed above, he'd look great. The beard covers up all of the wattles and the wattles are very small, to almost non-existent on bearded silkies. The non-bearded silkies have wattles that are larger (which is how they are supposed to be) and a clean face with no feathers. This is one of my girls and since she's facing the camera, you can see her beard better-- there is a big fluff ball under the beak/chin that covers up the wattles and the face. I hope that helps show the difference.





(BELOW) Feet-- your silkie boy is lacking feathering on the middle toe. It should be WELL feathered, not just a few feathers coming off of that middle toe, but have lots of feathers in abundance. This is one of my bird's feet--- showing how well feathered they should be. This one is NOT the best either... I've seen better! I should probably try to take a picture of a bird that has better feathers for the next time this question is asked.




Okay-- and for reference compared to your bird. This is MY rooster. I got him from Ideal Hatchery before I knew what the heck I was doing. He is a non-bearded white silkie. His problems are many! If you can see his legs-- hardly any feathering going down those legs-- that's bad. Then his feet were worse, next to no foot feathering. He had no "Type" which is that shape I was explaining before-- where the chest is out, neck and back tail are touching, NO back showing. My boy has a long back, and a pretty pitiful tail going on. His crest is small, and his comb is awful. In this picture his comb looks to be abut the right coloring-- a very dark mulberry, but it's not. His comb in person is actually very red. Also, it has little bumps and horns all over it. The comb should be mostly smooth with a wrinkle across the center. The comb on this boy was a disaster. Next up, is his ear lobe. It IS blue.... but it's also got a lot of white in it and the blue part is just in the middle with a lot of dark red around it. The earlobes should be entirely that beautiful blue that is so distinctive. Anyway, those are the highlights.




Okay-- now I just took this off the net, and this is not my bird (BELOW). But this is a very nice Non-bearded white silkie. You can see her face below her beak does not have a beard and has the face and wattles exposed. You can barely see the nice blue earlobe peeking thru the fluff. You can't see legs on this bird, nice medium crest that is perfectly round, and lots of tail and cushion in that tail!

 

[Hawkeye95]

This is almost identical to my bantam Cochin's body style wise. Bun on the back & very compact? The comb in aba calls for Walnut. I know red combs are DQ even though I've seen some pricy birds that the breeder purposefully bread in. Agh!! The deep red wine color of mine is undesirable as well I take it? Is there any way at all to tell if a chick will have these not so great traits (like tail pin feathers)? I know nothing about buying from a show and honestly until the whole family fell in love with our current birds we just looked for new chicks to have good health. Now we would love to be a part of the shows & that opens an entirely new can of worms. Your Roo looks fabulous!! This is the kind of body style I was hoping for with ours. Live & learn lol I'd probably take him anyways and just go with it but I talked with fritz about our daughters first junior entry and he mentioned there would be 2,000 entries. I'm going to go out and start collecting new prospects.. Sigh!

Okay, first of all, buying at the shows. It can be safe enough if YOU are very careful about what you're doing and you are buying from someone who is reputable. So how do you know? Look the bird over carefully to see how it's acting-- and if it looks bright and healthy and shows no outward signs of any symptoms. A runny nose, runny eyes, anything like that-- don't buy, don't touch, don't go near it. A bird that is in the corner of the cage hunched over and looking wilted is also not doing well. Unless they are resting, and you should be able to see the difference between a bird at rest and a bird not feeling well. If you buy a bird, quarantine it for 3 weeks when you get home. Don't let that bird come near your birds. I came home with 4 birds at Nationals, but I bought them from reputable people. I put them in a pen and gave them electrolytes in their water for stress since they traveled in a kennel to my house a state away and then were stressed with not knowing where they were at. I made sure they got BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) and kept a close eye on them. I did not medicate them. Now, I actually waited about 6 weeks before I put them in with my other birds, but I have the room to do so, and I was being pretty paranoid. None of them showed any signs of anything. Oh-- I also gave them probiotics in their feed to help boost their digestive and immune system since the powder I buy also has vitamins in it.

Hatching eggs are probably the safest thing to buy. If you do some research on people who are breeding Non-bearded silkies and start finding out if they are showing, and what they are doing with them, that would be someone to contact. Even if they aren't selling eggs, they may be able to direct you to someone who is.

If your rooster has a deep red wine color in his comb, that is FINE. From the pictures, it looks more red than that, but pictures can be so deceiving! So if you think he has the correct color in person, then he probably does. Now here's the thing-- there's no way to know what you'll get from breeding. You can breed two so/so quality breeder birds and get outstanding birds. You can breed two show quality birds and still wind up with lots of culls. But the point is--- the better the bird, the less faults you'll be passing on.

And YES-- go ahead and take your boy! So he's not perfect and he won't do well-- so what?! For now, it's better to get to those shows and see what you should be doing and meet people and get ideas of who you'd like to buy from and where you want to go with this. Shows are FUN! You don't want to cheat yourself out of the experience just because you don't have fantastic birds right now. You can get there!

 

[littlecritters]

Could you please bear with me, and help me understand this a little better? I'm not grasping the lacing concept on blue silkies and how the black would carry lacing genes bred back to BBS. We had a gorgeous blue Polish that had lacing and it was evident. Here is a page from my 2006 ABA SOP...and I am just not clear on this. Thanks!

X 2 ! This is often the problem in BBS birds when you keep using what are really dark blue birds instead of true blacks. It seems to me that now everyone is gung ho on BBS. Why? If you loose your true blacks in the breed, they really will be just that...LOST. Infusion of true black blood will help a BBS pen every time. Please read the standard on BLUE, and SELF BLUE. They are different.

DragonLady and all, Several of us on this thread are trying hard to find true blacks...which has turned out to be quite a challenge. Here are some of the obstacles we face. If you can share any feedback, it would be appreciated. 1) How can we identify whether a black bird comes from a BBS pen or is a pure black pen? 2) How can we tell whether a dark bird is a blue rather than black? 3) What is "wrong" with breeding a black from a BBS pen to a black from a pure black pen? 4) If black birds coming from BBS pens were bred together, would their offspring be considered pure black? Can a pure black line eventually be created out of BBS blacks? 5) Lastly, there are black birds from pure black pens that have a browner underfluff and tone. I have heard that these turn into the best blacks after their first molt. This seems confusing...? For those of us striving to create pure black pens, do you all have any suggestions?

 

[ChicksNherps]

Okay so! At the hotel now, my birds were all judged. Nori got 1st and BV, Toulouse got 1st, but Ice I was a bit confused. She got 5th place, and written on her card was "Color" and two check marks. What does this mean??? She is a blue, but a lighter blue. The hen who was also a lighter blue also got written "color" but also was "very typey" and she got 3rd out of her group. and what do checkmarks mean? Some were "check-check- minus", "check-check-check", "check- minus", and "check-check"

By now I am sure everyone knows her, but here is her picture anyway



and this is the coop card

 

[littlecritters]

And YES-- go ahead and take your boy!  So he's not perfect and he won't do well-- so what?!  For now, it's better to get to those shows and see what you should be doing and meet people and get ideas of who you'd like to buy from and where you want to go with this.  Shows are FUN!  You don't want to cheat yourself out of the experience just because you don't have fantastic birds right now.  You can get there!

X2! Have fun and enjoy!

 

[Peeps4me]

Here are two of my little pullets, 6 months old this week, and I would like to know what you all think of their quality. I know these aren't the best pictures but maybe you can get an idea about them. They both have good toe spacing, nails and feathering on the toes. I think the crests and cushions are pretty full. Eyes are very dark and round. The first one looks gray to me, but maybe she is very light blue. Her head and neck are darker than the rest of her body. Is this a DQ if I showed her? The other pullet is very black (don't know if it comes through in the pics). It was very windy when I took the pictures and she hunkered down so I will need to take more pics on a quiet day. I would like to try my hand at showing as it seems it would be a great way to meet other enthusiasts and learn more about the Silkie breed.

 

[peepblessed]

Here are two of my little pullets, 6 months old this week, and I would like to know what you all think of their quality. I know these aren't the best pictures but maybe you can get an idea about them. They both have good toe spacing, nails and feathering on the toes. I think the crests and cushions are pretty full. Eyes are very dark and round. The first one looks gray to me, but maybe she is very light blue. Her head and neck are darker than the rest of her body. Is this a DQ if I showed her? The other pullet is very black (don't know if it comes through in the pics). It was very windy when I took the pictures and she hunkered down so I will need to take more pics on a quiet day. I would like to try my hand at showing as it seems it would be a great way to meet other enthusiasts and learn more about the Silkie breed.

They both appear to be excellent birds. Your black looks blue in the second photo but photos are very deceiving! I can see the grass looks washed out. I would think any breeder would be happy to have these girls in their flock!