Silkie-Cochin Genetics

[OutInTheStiks]

Let me begin by saying that when we started our chicken venture a few months ago the one thing that we absolutely agreed on was there would be no silkes living in our backyard.

A few months later our friend (crittercrzy) bought a buff silke hen. She was cute in an odd sort of way. Silkies being silkies, she found a birchen-ish cochin husband, laid a clutch of eggs and hatched out 11 little fuzzy butts.

Somehow, two of them (and maybe three) of them have made it to living in our backyard. They don't look like silkes, so we only had to eat half of our words.

Now to my question. Assuming both are pullets (which we think they are) what are the chances that their offspring would display silkie feathering even though they do not? Our current bantam rooster, who they will be living with, is a speckled sussex.

 

[catwalk]

Silkied feathering is recessive. Your chicks' mother is hh, or homozygous for silkied. Their father is most likely HH, non silkied. All the babies are then Hh. They don't have the trait, but they carry the gene, and can pass it on to half their offspring. When bred to your Sussex (HH), half the chicks will be Hh, and half will be HH; none of them silkied. Only hh can have silkied feathers. I believe I have heard of modifiers that allow silkied expression in parts of the bird, but I dont know how it works. HH will never be silkied.

 

[OutInTheStiks]

Thanks for the great explanation!