Silkie breeding, genetics & showing

[Feathersprings]

Yes, it is a work in progress, and as such you may need to keep adding a bit of this or that until you have it right, but once you do, you shouldn't need to breed out anymore. Best people to talk to are George Mihalik and Sherry Humphreys.

I have seen pictures of Georges and that is why I like them Love the very pastel look they have they look blue cream instead of blue buff...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Ok, lets confuse (or maybe straighten out) some more... Porcelain is Self Blue (Lav/Lav) x Buff(which is NOT a simple gene combination) and has been called Blue Cream, Self Cream or Porcelain. The name seems to be in limbo??... Because of the complexity possible in the Buff genetics and hidden possibilities in the Self Blue it can throw some oddball colors. If the grandparents were "Pure" Buff (nothing hidden) x "Pure" Self Blue (Lav/Lav also no hidden) then both parents are "Pure" Porcelain and crossing them would only get Porcelain. However.... there are lots of hidden genes out there - that only when doubled will show. Lav (Lavender) is one, or genes may be sex-linked (Choc & Barring?).... chicken genetics are complex!

I think if you crossed a Porcelain x Porcelain and got Self Blue - somebody wasn't really Porcelain because you lost all the Buff genetics. Maybe that's what he means. Not all birds appearing to be Lavender (Self Blue) are actually Lav/Lav? Some very light Blue (Bl/bl) without lacing (lacing is hard to see on Silkies) look very much like Lavender... so if your Porcelain carries Bl and no Lav/Lav It might be Light Blue with gold leakage...

Ouch, now MY head hurts...
lav is the lavender gene; Lav+ is not-lavender. Marvin was talking genetics. It can be easy to confuse geneotype (genes present) with phenotype (appearance) when they are called the same thing (eg. lavender). And yes, losing part of the genetics for porcelain is what he was talking about.

A project isn't really complete until all the birds bred are pure (or breed predictably) for the genotype. Right now there are a lot of birds out there that are being called porcelain/self-blue cream/whatever, that really are not pure or predictable. There ARE breeders who are t the stage of getting reliable results, but a whole lot are not. And there is still way too much experimenting for someone else to really know what you (generically) have and how a bird from your line will cross with another line.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Then from my understanding of chicken genetics, he is Na/Na - which is homozygous for Naked Neck (two copies) - and they do not have the Bowtie - just a bare neck and will ONLY throw SGs because they ALWAYS give a copy of Na to their kids...
Exactly, although I have been told that an Na/Na bird can have a bowtie and Na/na does not always. I've never bred them, so I can only state what I was told (or more specifically corrected on) when I made a statement similar to yours.

Quote: I don't know that showgirls are that hard to find...you're not likely to find them at the feed store or through a hatchery (unless they are very early generation and very, very PQ), but there are plenty of breeders.

Quote:
The Naked Neck (Na/Na) is created by crossing SG to SG.... some will be silkies, some will be SG and some will be Naked Necks. I believe the ratios would be 50% SG, 25% Silkies & 25% NN silkies (which I think are also called SG?). What you don't want to do is cross NN x NN - because those crosses can make your birds loose more feathers each time - until you end up with NO feathers. Poor featherless birds don't live long...
There is a breed called Naked Neck (sometimes called turken) which was used to breed the gene in to silkies. Na is an incompletely dominant gene, like blue, and it breeds like blue.

Na/na (bow-tied showgirl) crossed to na/na (silkie) will give 50% of each.
Na/Na (clean neck showgirl) crossed to na/na will give 100% Na/na
Na/na crossed to Na/na will give 50% Na/na and 25% each of Na/Na and na/na

 

[PaintedFeathers]

Okay so I will be starting a mottled project

I want to breed my SL polish bearded roo to silkies to start. What color would be best to use so the SL will pop up? I know black is a dominant gene, would a black hen be a no no to use? I was thinking breed Toulouse to silkies, then the best offspring to silkies, then those best offspring back to toulouse, etc etc... Does this sound like a good plan? Or will breeding them back to Toulouse just take my project back a step? Should I breed him to a bunch of hens and then interbreed those offspring or would that be too much linebreeding? Should I get another SL roo?

 

[PaintedFeathers]

Exactly, although I have been told that an Na/Na bird can have a bowtie and Na/na does not always. I've never bred them, so I can only state what I was told (or more specifically corrected on) when I made a statement similar to yours.

I don't know that showgirls are that hard to find...you're not likely to find them at the feed store or through a hatchery (unless they are very early generation and very, very PQ), but there are plenty of breeders.
There is a breed called Naked Neck (sometimes called turken) which was used to breed the gene in to silkies. Na is an incompletely dominant gene, like blue, and it breeds like blue.

Na/na (bow-tied showgirl) crossed to na/na (silkie) will give 50% of each.
Na/Na (clean neck showgirl) crossed to na/na will give 100% Na/na
Na/na crossed to Na/na will give 50% Na/na and 25% each of Na/Na and na/na

My friend who currently has Toulouse has a NN silkie, the body is calico silkie, the head and neck are red like the turkens but he has a walnut comb and a few feathers on his head. He's adorable!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: Porcelain is a recognized variety, but not for silkies. The silkies that have been called porcelain are missing a significant component of the variety: mottling. Some judges were starting to complain or DQ birds entered as porcelain that did not have the correct porcelain phenotype (with mottling), so that is where self-blue cream came from...an attempt to find a name that works and is not already in use.

Lavender is the name of the gene. Self-blue is the american name for the variety. Self means a solid, uniform colour. A self black bird is solid black; a self buff bird is solid buff; a self white bird is solid white. In these cases the word "self" is not part of the variety name, but "blue" was already taken by the Andalusian blue: laced with darker head, hackle, saddle.

And yes, porcelain is not "a" gene, but a combination of a number of genes.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: Sherry Humphreys has George's flock; thus hers are that same pastel. And I agree, it is a lovely colour.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Okay so I will be starting a mottled project

I want to breed my SL polish bearded roo to silkies to start. What color would be best to use so the SL will pop up? I know black is a dominant gene, would a black hen be a no no to use? I was thinking breed Toulouse to silkies, then the best offspring to silkies, then those best offspring back to toulouse, etc etc... Does this sound like a good plan? Or will breeding them back to Toulouse just take my project back a step? Should I breed him to a bunch of hens and then interbreed those offspring or would that be too much linebreeding? Should I get another SL roo?

Silver lacing will not give you mottling if that is what you are asking. Are you trying to create silver laced silkies? Or mottled silkies? Or something else?

 

[PaintedFeathers]

Silver lacing will not give you mottling if that is what you are asking. Are you trying to create silver laced silkies? Or mottled silkies? Or something else?

Well silver laced, but someone told me they would be called mottled because silkies don't show lacing well. But yes ultimately I want to create silver laced silkies.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: They might look something similar to mottled, but someone who knows mottling would not mistake it. Mottle produces a white spot on the tip of the feather. Silver laced outlines a white feather in black. I agree that lacing would not show well on a silkie, at least not like the defined lacing you see on non-silkied feathers, but you should still call it laced. In appearance, it would be something like the penciling you see on partridge silkies, but with fewer markings (penciling is multiple lacings)