Silkie thread!

[Fancychooklady]

Hello, I'm in need of a little advice. I have 2 very nice lavender hens. Their only fault being their eye color and their skin is a shade lighter than I would like.

I'm looking to bring new blood to the line and darken the eyes and skin a bit. I do realize this will take time and a few generations. I have a black roo with the traits I want to introduce but his faults are some silver leakage in the hackles and he's not as nicely feathered as I like. He has great toe spacing, coal black skin, very dark comb but a little small, black eyes, and great body shape.

What are everyones thoughts on using him to improve my lavenders lines? Obviously, I would prefer to use a show quality roo to do this but silkies are in short supply in my area. My main concern is the silver leakage and how that would affect the lavender, if at all, in the long run.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm lousy when it comes to genetics but you might like to PM @Sonoran Silkies
This is her area of expertise.

 

[chicken hawk 33]

This is her.

and then her egg.it has a light creamy color to it. Hers on the right and a old bantam hen on the left.

 

[abbevilleoz]

Yep, such good points. Your mention of color sexing brings up a question though - why hasn't anyone tried to create a sex linked Silkie? Sure, it couldn't be used for show purposes, but so many people just want them as pets anyhow - and no doubt a guaranteed female Silkie chick would be a big seller! The idea is actually what got me into Silkies in the first place - I've been researching color genetics for about a year now and I suddenly realized that a simple cross of Partridge over Cuckoo would make life a lot easier for a lot of breeders and prospective owners... that's what I'm working on now, though the project is currently laughably small as I have only one Cuckoo hen. But I also have a beautiful Cuckoo cock, who will hopefully help me produce plenty of little Cuckoos for breeding next season.

Your mention of it not being 50/50 is spot on. I've had one hatch that was 7 cockerels to 3 pullets, and another which was 1 cockerel to 9 pullets.

How is your skin and comb color coming on your Cuckoo project?

 

[Duck Drover]

Duck drover...you may have just opened yourself up to a heap of questions! Lol! I'm a newbie, and have a lot of genetic/ color questions!

There are lots of people far more knowledgeable than me. It took me days to catch up this thread before I joined in. I am always learning new things.

 

[Duck Drover]

Selling the cockerels is often not that easy and anyone going into breeding has to either have the stomache to cull or create a bachelor pen and spend a lot of money feeding excess Roos.
Everyone wants pullets and as colour sexing , feather sexing and even vent sexing don't apply to silkies by the time you are able to guarantee the sex of the birds you will undoubtedly have a good ratio of Roos to rehome . The statistics aren't always 50/50, I once had a hatch of 13 , 9 Roos and 4 pullets.

Yes, we sadly have to take roosters to the auction for meat when they don't sell as pets or breeders. That is a sacrifice we have to make in order to raise pullets to keep. That is why I prefer to sell straight run chicks over selling pullets. Once we have invested in raising the pullets and "discarding" the roosters, I want to benefit from our labor and expense myself.

So many people ask me for pullets and hens when I list chicks for sale and I want to say "good luck with that" rather than politely explaining "we are only offering chicks at this time" over and over again. I understand people not wanting to raise the boys if they can't keep them but I don't want to raise girls for them and not even recover my feed costs to give them all the benefits at my expense.

The reality is that Silkies are hard to sex. People expect me to identify the girl chicks for them and it can't be done without vent sexing or doing a DNA test. I would love the ability to test DNA myself because then I would be testing all my chicks and saving alot of money on feed costs but it is not cost effective to send off DNA samples to a lab to test for a fee. I basically sell all my girl chicks at the boy price so I think that is fair.

I have actually read about how to separate the DNA strands but I have not purchased the supplies to try it. Maybe I will give it a try one day. I love being able to vent sex our ducklings but Silkie chicks are far too small for me to want to try it. I have not even vent sexed the adults because by then there is no need.

 

[Duck Drover]

Yep, such good points. Your mention of color sexing brings up a question though - why hasn't anyone tried to create a sex linked Silkie? Sure, it couldn't be used for show purposes, but so many people just want them as pets anyhow - and no doubt a guaranteed female Silkie chick would be a big seller! The idea is actually what got me into Silkies in the first place - I've been researching color genetics for about a year now and I suddenly realized that a simple cross of Partridge over Cuckoo would make life a lot easier for a lot of breeders and prospective owners... that's what I'm working on now, though the project is currently laughably small as I have only one Cuckoo hen. But I also have a beautiful Cuckoo cock, who will hopefully help me produce plenty of little Cuckoos for breeding next season.

Your mention of it not being 50/50 is spot on. I've had one hatch that was 7 cockerels to 3 pullets, and another which was 1 cockerel to 9 pullets.

The boys are great pets but so many areas do not allow roosters. With Silkies the main indicator of a rooster is the crowing so breeding a voiceless Silkie would solve alot of sexing problems! I think more people would keep their roosters if it was up to them, either strictly as pets or as a way to make more Silkies whenever they wanted.

Now with ducks it is the drakes that are quiet but people still want hens for eggs or to make more ducklings. There is no sexual discrimination with backyard ducks since there are no ordinances banning drakes but hen ducks are still in higher demand. We occasionally have people who will take a drake group to eat duckweed and mosquito larvae from their pond or eat the bugs and slugs around their gardens, without taking time off from their work duties for maternity leave, but the hens are still in higher demand. We play the numbers game all the time with our boys.

 

[Duck Drover]

I'm on the other end of the county in TN and basically working on the same thing. I've got some red  silkie eggs in the incubator now and some gray and cuckoo eggs under some broodies. Obviously these won't be sex link, only stock for the sex-link project. I'm a generation or two at least away from real sex-links. There is tons of information on here in regards to creating sex-links for other breeds and I believe much of it can be applied to silkies. We'll never know until we try.

Sex linking is certainly a great idea but there are so many colors that don't sex link so it would only work mixing certain colors. Once you get out of your first generation, you have mixed genetics for color so it may not work in future generations. With color breeds, the color has to breed true from generation to generation.

My understanding of sex linking using color breeding is that the rooster throws his color to the pullets and the hen throws her color to the cockerels. With true sex linked birds you breed the same colored hens and roosters together and the chicks have color indicators at hatching that may or may not result in different coloration patterns as adults. The adults would always maintain a standard of plumage even though as hatchlings there are indicators that are always true for determining male versus female.

There is alot about genetics I don't know but I do find it fascinating up to the point where it becomes too mind blowing. When we used to color breed Appaloosa horses we spent alot of effort trying to breed a palamino with a blanket (foals must have "color' to register as a color breed) and never succeeded. I finally just bought my palamino Appaloosa mare at a horse auction.

It takes more than a Punnett square to determine offspring colors because it is not as easy as mixing two colors together to get the color you want. I imagine anyone who is working on a project color can attest to the trials and tribulations of getting the final product just right. I just stick to BBS and let the colors work themselves out.

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

What's everyone's favorite color of Silkie between splash and porcelain thanks

 

[QueenMisha]

I'm sure that if you can come up with a colour sexing bird , that breeds true you will have a line to your door.

The ones I'm working on now are one-generation deals unfortunately, but an autosexing Silkie is a great idea. To have them breed true would make it even easier, since you'd only need one bloodline/breeding pen rather than three. I haven't had time to delve into autosexing genetics as much as I'd like... but I do know that it takes a multiple generation cross to make an autosexing bird which breeds true. I've seen some charts which suggest it can be done in as little as three generations and others which seem to suggest upwards of five to ten...

How is your skin and comb color coming on your Cuckoo project?

Not as nicely as I'd like it to. My hen and both of my cocks have pretty significant pigment holes and the cock's combs are quite red. When I started the project I grabbed what was available from my local breeder, since I was more concerned about plumage pattern. The next few months I plan on dedicating more time to seeking out very good quality Cuckoos and Partridges and when I move my Cuckoo hen in with the Cuckoo cock (she's currently with the Partridge cocks to do a test breeding of the sex links), I'll be hatching a good lot of offspring and culling heavily with a close eye on the skin and comb color. I don't show so I'm not looking for perfection, but my aim is to produce a Silkie with good shape, correct toes, and correct skin color.

The boys are great pets but so many areas do not allow roosters. With Silkies the main indicator of a rooster is the crowing so breeding a voiceless Silkie would solve alot of sexing problems! I think more people would keep their roosters if it was up to them, either strictly as pets or as a way to make more Silkies whenever they wanted.

Now with ducks it is the drakes that are quiet but people still want hens for eggs or to make more ducklings. There is no sexual discrimination with backyard ducks since there are no ordinances banning drakes but hen ducks are still in higher demand. We occasionally have people who will take a drake group to eat duckweed and mosquito larvae from their pond or eat the bugs and slugs around their gardens, without taking time off from their work duties for maternity leave, but the hens are still in higher demand. We play the numbers game all the time with our boys.

I absolutely agree, my main motivation and target sales for the project is the people who can't have cocks due to local ordinances, and won't risk straight run chicks because of this. I know there's a big demand for Silkies but I think that even people who CAN have boys would prefer sexed chicks as they can choose how many of each they want. Most folks don't want to get 10 chicks and end up with 7 Roos!

Sex linking is certainly a great idea but there are so many colors that don't sex link so it would only work mixing certain colors. Once you get out of your first generation, you have mixed genetics for color so it may not work in future generations. With color breeds, the color has to breed true from generation to generation.

My understanding of sex linking using color breeding is that the rooster throws his color to the pullets and the hen throws her color to the cockerels. With true sex linked birds you breed the same colored hens and roosters together and the chicks have color indicators at hatching that may or may not result in different coloration patterns as adults. The adults would always maintain a standard of plumage even though as hatchlings there are indicators that are always true for determining male versus female.

There is alot about genetics I don't know but I do find it fascinating up to the point where it becomes too mind blowing. When we used to color breed Appaloosa horses we spent alot of effort trying to breed a palamino with a blanket (foals must have "color' to register as a color breed) and never succeeded. I finally just bought my palamino Appaloosa mare at a horse auction.

It takes more than a Punnett square to determine offspring colors because it is not as easy as mixing two colors together to get the color you want. I imagine anyone who is working on a project color can attest to the trials and tribulations of getting the final product just right. I just stick to BBS and let the colors work themselves out.

You're thinking of Autosexing breeds, I think. Sex Links are always one-generation, A + B = C type deals. Autosexing birds are the ones which can breed true, A + A = A. Of course Sex Links are something that can ever be shown, but there are tons of people who I'm sure would love the chance to purchase a guaranteed female Silkie as a pet.

I love BBS simply because you don't have to choose only one color - you can keep all three colors together and get three pure types of offspring. Splash in particular is my favorite, even though Blue is the most popular of the three.

 

[Duck Drover]

I love splash the best too! I have always hated having freckles but I have always loved spotted animals and birds due to their unique markings. Paints have spots but I love the splash better because I also like blues. Blacks can go either way, I think.

In order to get more splash hens, I only have one black hen with mostly blue and splash hens. My black was one of my first Silkies and I went through several splash roosters to make blues and dilute splashes before I got my blue rooster to make more splashes without diluting the splash color.

At first I traded out roosters every year, up to several times a year, so I could keep all my pullets and choose the best ones to keep but now I have been using my blue rooster for two years already. I am getting lots of splash chicks to keep from my blue to splash breedings but I can't breed him back to his splash granddaughters.

I should bring in a new rooster now but I am trying to get as many splash pullets as I can out of him so I have plenty of his daughters to keep. I will need another blue rooster to replace him with so I am looking now but at the same time he will not be eaten.

I used to hatch Sizzles in order to keep using my Silkie roosters once they were replaced and needing a new flock but now I don't have a place to keep a lone rooster until he has a home. I am looking for his replacement already so his clock has started ticking. I may just have to separate my flock and find a new rooster for his daughters and granddaughters while keeping him with my older hens.

The Sizzle pen was turned over to my Easter Egger hens and Quechua rooster to make some Old World Easter Eggers that will only lay blue and green eggs. If I mix Silkies with that trio I could certainly tell if anything ends up crossbred but I am not sure there is much demand for Silkie crosses, even if they lay colored eggs. I hate crossing breeds unless they are marketable like the Sizzles.

I got out of frizzled Cochins and I don't want to go back. I kept a frizzled Cochin rooster and a Silkie rooster with my Silkie hens and Silkie roosters with my frizzled Cochin hens but I could not keep the frizzled Cochins together or they could breed frazzled feathers. Now I only want to hatch Silkies with my Silkie rooster and let other people make Sizzles.

Breeding Silkies has been an ongoing challenge because I want to be always making improvements. I am not well versed in making the highest quality Silkies with regard to fine tuning since I am just trying to make the most with what I have to work with on a budget. If I was showing Silkies I would have a better eye for breeding and a better knowledge of genetics. I just sort of put two nice looking birds together and hope for the best, then I select the best ones to breed and sell the rest as pets or broodies. That makes me more of a propagator than a reputable breeder but I want to learn how to be a better hobby breeder.

It would be awesome to know more about how to choose the best possible rooster for my flock. I know true breeders look at paired matings more than running a single rooster over a flock of hens but I don't have a setup to manage breeding show winners, especially when I don't show. I am honestly more of a hatchery because I mostly love hatching baby birds and keeping the best for myself!