Silkie breeding genetics

[mochicken]

If I breed a "blue silkie" rooster to a white hen what would the chicks come out as? blue? black? White?

 

[chickendales]

Silkies are almost always recessive white. Which means to be white, they must carry two copies of the recessive white allele. Recessive white is very good at covering all other colour and pattern genes present in the bird, so when you breed white to white, you have no idea what colour genes are being mixed together. Generations later of white to white breeding you have absolutely no idea of what other colours or patterns are present in an individual bird. With the exception of each carrying two copies of recessive white, they are all genetically uniquely individual.

Whe you cross a recessive white bird to a specific colour (such as splash/blue/black) and ask for the result, you might as well say "if I breed my splash/blue/black bird to an unknown bird, what colour of chicks will they have?

Going with your known colours: black will never parent a splash bird; blue will about half the time if bred to a splash, and about a quarter of the time is bred to a blue. Splash bred to splash will give 100% splash.

Yes, it is possible to get a splash out of a white bird if bred to a blue or splash--but the odds are stacked against it. The likelihood of various patterns showing up and the unlikelihood of the bird carrying blue or splash speaks against it.

 

[chickendales]

Quote:
this not my quote i stole it from Sonoran Silkies