SILKIE FEATHERING INFORMATION WANTED!!!

[chickenwhisperer123]

If you breed a silkie feathered chicken (a silkie) to an unsilkie feathered chicken, (say a polish,) will the offspring be silkie feathered, or normal feathered? Then if you breed the offspring togeter, will you get a larger percentage of silkie feathered chickens?
I would like to experiment with this next year, but would like to have some info on it beforehand.
Thanks,
Jason

 

[willowcol]

I have a silkie EE mix and it has regular feathers. Not sure how that works but someone who knows more should be able to give you a better answer. Just wnated to help a bit if I could.

 

[StrawberryHouseMouse]

It takes a lot of breeding to get a polish and silkie mixed right. I'm working on a project myself as soon as I get me some of the right birds I'm after.
Silkie x Polish = Some with feathered legs some with out. A mix of blue skin in the body and head some with out. Things like that
Then Silkie x Polish offspring should be selected for the silkie like qualities that your going for. And you should mix them with another silkie. And just continue this till you get what your looking for. Some times you might have to mix a polish back in. It's one of those things that take experiance and a know for what your looking for and how to get it . Something that's hard to explain.

 

[chickenwhisperer123]

Thats the thing, is that I dont want the silkie traits..
ALL I want from the silkie is the feathering, no feather feet, no black skin, no fifth toe, no nothing except for the feathering. I dont mean necisarally polish, that was just an example..

 

[MoodyChicken]

It is a recessive trait. It breeds true when you cross silkie feathered x silkie feathered, but you won't know if a bird carries the silkie feathering gene unless you do a breeding test. Heterzygotes (one normal feathered gene and one silkie feathered gene) appear to be normally feathered but they carry one silkie feathered gene. When crossed to another heterozygote, only 25% will hatch silkied. Ane when a heterozygote is crossed to a silkie feathered bird (two copies of the silkie feathered gene), 50% will be silkie feathered.

 

[MoodyChicken]

Quote:
All those traits are dominant. It will be a hard task to keep silkie feathering and get rid of everything else.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

To bring silkie feathering into a breed will take two generations. And then you will need to breed out other silkie features.

In your first cross, you will get all or mostly birds with feathered feet, silkie comb, dark skin, 5 toes. All these offspring will have one copy of the gene for silkie feathering.

Select amongst these birds for the ones that are closest to the features you want, and breed them together. About 25% of the F2 offspring will have silkie feathers. If you select from these the birds with the best features, you can continue selecting through each subsequent generation or breeding which features most closely match your goal. 2/3 of the non-silkie feathered birds will carry a single copy of the gene for silkie feathering; but you won't be able to distinguish them from the other third who don't have a copy at all.

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

SILKIE FEATHERING IS USUALLY DOMINANT!!! SEE SUZE'S RESPONSE ABOVE!!! NEXT TIME TAKE THE CAP'S LOCK OFF!!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Huh??? Yours is the only post in all caps??? Or did someone delete a post the made?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Silkie feathering is recessive. Non-silkie feathering is dominant.