Silkie thread!

[NOLA Chicks]

Hi Guys,
I just wanted to share my new babies with you guys

Chicken genetics are crazy! Mom is my beautiful Calico Silkie and dad was a buff. I got two Snow White, 2 brown, and one Jett Black (hatched today). Two of them have them have the prettiest vaulted skulls

I am in love!!

Mom and babies are beautiful!

The Professor just watching as the chicks foraged. He's a sweetheart of a chicken. Loves to be held. "He" is used loosely since we don't know for sure yet.

They're all so cute including Cheddar. She didn't want to be left out!

I FOUND SAND!!!!

I never knew I'd be so excited to find sand! lol We had a big mountain of nice sand right here on the farm. I knew there was gravel and wood chips, didn't think we had sand but surprise! I lugged 3 wheelbarrows, half filled, to my little Cochins. Omg, I almost died.

That stuff is really heavy when it's wet and pushing a heavy wheelbarrow up hill isn't fun. Next time I'll have someone take the tractor out for me and scoop up some sand. I'll just shovel it into the pen. Save me a lot of hours and work. lol
But I have sand!! I think I'll take some out for the Silkies also if this works out well.

You'll love using the sand. I have a big patio made of DG. The run is on one end of it and I added 2-3 inches of sand on top of the DG in there. The girls love it and it's so much easier to maintain.

A winter pile is small diameter and "taller." A summer pile is large diameter and one silkie deep (unless there is a hen brooding babies. Top hen position is bottom center of the pile (although babies will spread underneath the adult pile). Lower ranking hens are farther out, and the whole pile is surrounded by the boys.

It is an entirely different gene. The gene referenced in the diagram is blue.

Zero copies is not-blue (undiluted black pigment)
One copy is blue (single dilution of black pigment)
Two copies is splash (double dilution of black pigment).

To put it another way:
black is not-blue/not-blue (Bl+/Bl+)
blue is not-blue/blue (Bl+/bl)
splash is blue/blue (bl/bl)

The genetic symbol for lavender is lav. It is located on a different chromosome from blue, and it dilutes both black and red pigment equally. It is completely recessive, and has NO effect if only a single copy is present.

This is one of the things I like most about this thread. The things I've been able to learn here have truly enriched my experience with my chickens.

What field did the professor get HER degree in?

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:

The vaulted skull has a lot to do with the crested gene - if they have two copies they have a chance of getting a vaulted skull. Some people think that is "proper" - I prefer not to have them because I do know the vaulted ones have holes and can have problems. I still haven't heard if the un-vaulted ones have holes...

NO. Vaulted skulls and crests are separate, although you do not find vaulted skull birds without a crest.

Vaulted skulls are very obvious on young chicks. They look like they have a ball on top of their heads. That ball is their skull that has been pushed up - or "vaulted" - like vaulted ceilings. I have heard when they get older you can't tell the vaulted ones from the un-vaulted if they are well crested so I really don't see any benefit and only see drawbacks to having them.

Not exactly. The technical term is cerebral hernia, and the vault is the brain that expands outside the skull. As with babies who also have incomplete skulls at birth, as the bone grows together as the creature matures. MOST breeders do not select for either vaulted or non-vaulted, although I have seen it go in cycles. No one ever talks about polish having issues, but it is a breed REQUIREMENT that they have vaulted skulls, and their vaults tend to be far larger than silkie vaults!

Thank you for that information. I have heard of people saying their chick has a "proper" vaulted skull - so I was wondering if they were breeding towards it. If you have not seen a problem with them I won't worry so much about it.

Has there been any research done to see if a vaulted skull causes problems with hatching? I would sort of think having your brain outside your skull might make it hard to turn in those little shells and I have been having problems with hatching out the eggs from the pair that hatched the vaulted skull chick (dead in shell) - and no problems from the ones without the vaulted skulls..

Quote: Thank you for that information too, is this the un-named gene (or just not in the chicken calculator) that does it? Are these not going to be a "good" black if they are e^b based?

Also, on the two Partridge colored chick - one had very light (white) legs and feet and the other had dark "greenish" legs and feet and their beaks and skin are not "proper" black. They both are getting darker now, but it looked weird for a bit there, light skinned Silkies

The black chicks all have black legs, beaks, skin and feet. I think the e^Wh is the e-allele that usually expresses as light legs/feet at birth and darkening up as they get older (as I have seen in Ameraucanas). Can e^b do this also? The genetics are fascinating to me.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Hey All!!! I just ordered my very first Silkie's!
Pick up on saturday and very excited!
I picked a white hen, a red rooster, a red hen and two grey splash-ish not sure which they ares because they are younger.

Any tips for a novice??
We have just built a wonderful coop, which used to be essentially a truck crate repurposed coop, which now has a 60+ meter square run.
Our chooks get all of our vegy scraps along with chook food from our local farmers shop.
I also hang things like cabbage and pumpkins about 1 to 2 feet above the ground to keep them entertained. (this is for the 4 layer hens we already have)

Thanks for any tips you may have for me!

Hi and Welcome to the wonderful world of Silkie Ownership - and Welcome to BYC!

They are great birds, and I have had lots of fun with mine. They really like to hatch their own chicks and go broody anytime you leave eggs in the nest!

It sounds like they have plenty of room. They may not join in the fun of playing with the pumpkins and cabbage if they can't see it, but if they see the others jumping up they might join in the fun - and I am sure they will clean up anything that gets dropped.

 

[Jharper]

I have 4 (eleven) week old silkies. Two buffs, two whites. I was wondering how big their egg size is. Ive heard that peoples silkies can lay everyday. Is one Silkie breed better than another as far as egg laying goes?

Not that I know of. Depends on their ancestral background of egg laying.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Thanks for the info... I'm not a genetics guru yet... so it is confusing to me when you say two copies. And do you get a paint from a white? Where do paints come from?
Quote: Well, I said two copies because each bird has a pair of genes - one from each parent. If they get a copy from each parent then they have two copies. If they get it from only one parent then they have one copy (the other is "not lavender"). Recessive genes are only supposed to express when there are two copies. I think there may be exceptions - but that only makes it more confusing.

I think chicken genetics are more confusing in some ways than other genetics. I am still trying to learn them and I get things wrong because of that. What I was trying to say there is that they are two different genes - not the same gene. I recently learned a Paint bird is a bird with the Dominant White gene (can be only one copy and it works (think like a bucket of white paint dumped over a black bird - it didn't get everywhere - that's leakage and your black feathers)), and a White bird (in Silkies) is a bird with two copies of recessive white, and it has to have two copies to be White.

Oh, and I have seen that one gene can be "dominant" in expression over another gene (phenotype - what you see when looking at the bird). There is a lady who has both lavender and recessive white in her birds. She didn't know she had recessive white, she is breeding for lavender. If the bird gets two copies of both (because she is breeding lavender to lavender we know they have two copies of lavender) she gets a White bird. So recessive white shows in expression over lavender. That's what I was meaning - I wasn't sure if you had a bird with two copies of Blue ("splash") and two copies of lavender which color it would show. It might be a splash with lavender splotches?

I believe recessive white is dominant in expression over ever other color gene? Perhaps it is like recessive white is a paint stripper - it takes off all the paint the other genes could possibly put on with two coats - so nothing is there and the bird is White. Its not strong enough to strip the color with one coat, has to be double strength. Just like lavender, double strength or it won't show.

I don't know if that is clear as mud to you, I am still trying to find ways to know how to liken chicken genetics to something so I can related to it

 

[CruchyJeepMama]

Since my 2 red silkies have red combs I know they are boys, so I decided to name them. This is Maynard

And this is Schism

 

[CruchyJeepMama]

Whoops! This one is Schism.

 

[moomoodiddy]

hey yalll i have a problem broody. i am tryin to htach one of her eggs amd i dont have any other broody hen or invubator she will go broody on one egg but then rollit out and just sit on air i have no idea what she is trying to acomplish. is there anythinv ivcan do with her? tbanks in advance

 

[PaintedFeathers]

Since my 2 red silkies have red combs I know they are boys, so I decided to name them.

This is Maynard

And this is Schism

Whoops! This one is Schism.

Super cute =D Do you have pictures of their combs? Sometimes females can get red too but it's the size that is a real good indicator. Schism does have pretty prominant waddles, but Maynard does not.

 

[BuckNBark Farm]

Howdy. Both of these pullets are porcelain- are either of them isabelle (spell?) The popcorn salt color one has a tinsy bit of lavender that you can't see in the pic. Not much, tho.

Thanks!