Silkie Genetics, Which to Keep

[ebenavides5]

Hello,

A family member of mine has 4 silkies, 2 boys and 2 girls, he gives me the eggs to incubate. Since 1 of the girls is white and 1 girl is black and the 2 boys are black, I only wanted to keep the true black colors (since if I keep the white looking ones, I might get black genes which will later on become breed and seen).

Some if some of the chicks come out white, I know I shouldnt keep them bc there is only black roosters, so obviously it has black genes.

But my questions is the if the chick looks black, then it has only black jeans right?

It be alot easier to just separate them but there is only one white hen and they arent mine to begin with :/

 

[ebenavides5]

lol i meant genes not jeans

 

[happybooker1]

If Black is BB and White is bb, then Black Rooster to white hen = 75% Bb and 25% bb. Where the Black chicks will have a recessive gene for white. The only 'pure' Black chicks will come from the Black Rooster and Black Hen. Then they would be "BB".

 

[ebenavides5]

ok so if i get black chicks then the white hen might still be involved correct? Scenario: if I get white chicks i'll obviously know that the white hen is the mom but if I get a black chick then I cannot rule out the white hen as the mom bc her genes are recessive? There is not visual way of knowing that the black chicks are 'pure' (BB) instead of (Bb) without actually physically separating them in different pens?

thanks again

 

[happybooker1]

Yes that is correct. Is there any way you can get the owner of the adults to mark which eggs come from which hen? That would be helpful. Then you can only hatch out the eggs from the Black Hen and Rooster.

 

[LaynaDon95]

Not an expert or anything, but you should totally keep the ones with black jeans!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[ebenavides5]

lol cool