i have white and partridge silkies i bought from a hactchery that are not even close to show quaility but i have buff, blue, and cuckoo silkies who are show quality. and i was wondering if in was to mix the show quality with the non SQ and will end up with white and part. show quality or smoe what show quality silkies. i really want nice w and p silkies with bigger crest like my SQ silkies. so if i was to mix the SQ buff with the non SQ white would i get SQ white chicks with a few SQ buff chicks? or will they turn out to be like the white? i also heard that whitw and partridge silkie colors are the most domanant? is that true? so SQ buff X non SQ white and partridge = white and partridge and buff silkies who are more SQ?? is this confuseing?
In my opinion, if the birds you have are not close to show quality or even breeder quality, but you want that color in that breed, I would wait and buy either birds or eggs from a line of proven stock. I would focus on making the show birds even better by heavy culling. If you were to mix the show and hatchery stock. Almost everything you would produce, would probably be a cull as well. I just think you could save some time and money and headache by buying good lines from the start.
No, it simply isn't worth the trouble to breed backwards. Breed show quality birds to hatchery stock, and all ya really do is end up with hatchery stock. It's not that it can't be done, but we could shovel snow out of a driveway with a spoon too. It could take you years to bring the quality back up to what you were halfway at in the first place. What works with color doesn't work with the overall quality and type. In other words, breeding a low end bird with a high end bird will not give you half good birds and half 'bad' ones. You end up with a lot of bad ones, and at best, a few that are not quite as bad.
Quote:White is a recessive trait in silkies. If you cross the white with another variety the cross will produce birds that are not white. This is true if the nonwhite bird does not carry a recessive white gene. Partridge is caused by two genes and buff is caused by 4 or more genes. You can produce whites in two crosses but the others will take multiple crosses to get the color correct. If crest is the only problem, you should be able to produce birds with good crests in one or two crossings. Other characteristics will take many more crosses. You not only have to deal with color but also the show quality traits which makes the task more difficult- would require too much money and time. I agree with the previous posts. If you want to produce white birds with bigger crests, do the following. Pick out a male show quality bird that has the best crest. Cross the male with your white females( hatch at least 10 or more birds)- this cross will produce F1 nonwhite birds- from the F1 offspring pick a male and female(s) nonwhite birds that have the best crests Cross the F1 nonwhite offspring with the best crests( hatch twenty or more birds)- this cross will produce a few F2 white offspring- your odds are one in four of getting F2 white offspring . This group of offspring (the F2) should contain birds with superior crests. Hopefully the whites will inherit the superior crests. If you produce birds with superior crests but the birds are not white- do the F1 nonwhite offspring cross until you get whites with good crests. If you do not get superior crests in any of the birds in this group ( the F2) of offspring, stop breeding. Or you can just purchase some white birds with superior crests. This will be much easier and less costly. Tim
