Silkie colors and breeding

[Plant Mom]

I hatched 6 eggs and I got 2 splash males, 1 blue male, 1 chocolate female and 2 of these. One is black with a gold neck and the other is brown with a gold neck and I believe they are both males as well. What can I breed the chocolate female to?

 

[NatJ]

What can I breed the chocolate female to?

You can breed her to any male you want. Which male is best will depend on what traits you are trying to produce.

If you want more chicks that show chocolate, try the male that is brown with a gold neck, because he probably has the chocolate gene as well. Breeding her back to her own father might work even better for producing chocolate chicks, but I don't know if that is an option (if you bought the eggs, you probably don't have easy breeding access to the birds that produced those eggs.)

 

[Plant Mom]

I keep confusing splash with paint.

 

[NatJ]

I keep confusing splash with paint.

They do look somewhat similar, and both of them start with a genetically black chicken. But Splash has two copies of the Blue gene, while Paint has just one copy of the Dominant White gene. And of course they give different results when you breed them.

(When I said they start with a genetically black chicken, for Splash I mean the that are splash all over. Splash and Blue affect any black on the chicken, so there can also be colors like Splash Laced Red and Blue Laced Red, or Splash Wheaten and Blue Wheaten. But I didn't think you are talking about them, because they don't look like Paint.)