Silkie chicks

tantan

Hatching
Apr 2, 2017
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0
9
Hello. My daughter has started raising Silkies. She has a white rooster and 4 hens, a black, a speckled and two porcelains. She has an incubator and so far has hatched 16 chicks. 15 of those 16 are black chicks. So I'm thinking our rooster has a black dominant gene. I was thinking for Easter to buy her some hatching eggs. A few white and maybe a few of another color she's looking for. Her silkies are all from show lines. Our normal supplier doesn't have the colors she is needing. Where can I go to get show line quality hatching eggs? And where I can get hatching eggs that carry the more dominant white gene?
Thanks
 
What colours are you wanting? If you are wanting whites, then its actually pretty easy with the birds you currently have.

Your white rooster over your black hen has made black babies that carry white. If you bred the black ladies either back to the rooster you have or to another white rooster you would get some white babies, some black, and some partridge I think, (should be 1/2 white, 1/4 partridge, 1/4 black chicks)

Now by speckled I am going to assume its either a Splash or a Paint. The different between the two is a paint is black spots and a splash is "blue" spots (they're a light-dark grey instead of a pure black) You can google for images :)

1. If your hen is a SPLASH the babies she makes with your white rooster should have made BLUE chicks, which until they get older may be hard to tell apart from a BLACK chick, so keep an eye on them! :)
2. If your hen is a PAINT then I have no idea what she would make, chances are she's honestly a Splash. PAINTS are much more rare and their genetics are still very unknown and I would not introduce them into your breeding program because there are many imperfections in this colour to my knowledge like too much or not enough colour in places like the skin or ears :)

Now, your white rooster with the porcelain girls SHOULD have made golden chicks, so I think majority of your chicks are from your "speckled" or black hen, not your porcelain sadly...

If you are looking for chicks or birds from reputable breeders I would look on Facebook probably, or on here :) maybe check craigslist but chances are better on Facebook, good luck chicken-ing! :D
 
Thank you for commenting. We are pretty new at this silkie genetics as you can tell.
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After reading your post, we took another look and we do have a chick that is a lighter black than the others. So it could be a possible blue. I will try to get pictures of it tomorrow.
We had a chick to hatch in the incubator over night. We found it this morning since we were out of town for the night. It's the only odd color from the others. I've attached a picture of Echo.
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I would say you have at least one blue blue! in the bottom image!
In the top of the image, the row of babies, the third one in that is lighter is probably a blue.

That other chick, the lighter one who is not only freaking adorable, but I have no idea on colour xD I would probably wait until its older to say anything for sure, but it should be something adorable :)
 
Thank you. The bottom chick you said was probably blue is the same chick in the photo above it named Echo. I guess I'm going to tag the ones we are wanting to keep an eye on and see what happens in the next few months.
Thank you so much for taking the time out and responding
 

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