Silkie thread!

[sue25]

Haven't been on in a while. New hatch today.

Blue Cream grow out.

Older chicks special.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

Going to ask this here too!

Does anyone else's Silkies have blue under their eyes?

It's as if my boy is wearing blue eyeliner

I'm curious to know the genetics behind this as the blue under his eyes is different to that on his earlobes.

 

[Hinotori]

I had a huge silkie rooster that had blue on his face under his eyes. It looked like it had leaked over from his earlobes. None of his sons have that.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

I had a huge silkie rooster that had blue on his face under his eyes. It looked like it had leaked over from his earlobes. None of his sons have that.

Likewise, no chicks from that rooster have had blue under their eyes either!

I have recently been in contact with Sigrid who writes the chicken colours/genetics books and I thought I'd ask her about it. She said she had never seen where the earlobe colour extends to other parts of the body but it would be classed as over-expression. As for the genetics that cause it, there hasn't been enough research done on it to be able to give an answer.

 

[sue25]

I used to be on this thread all the time. Now on several groups all dealing with Silkies. Hope all had a Merry Christmas.

 

[sue25]

My New Year Trio. Lavender/Self Blue hatched August 2019.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

I hope I am posting in the correct place. I have a couple of questions about my silkie cockerel named, "Blue". He was hatched on August 13th, 2019. I'm wondering what color he is considered. From what I have learned so far, it seems that he is non-bearded. He weighs 2lbs and his comb is the biggest thing about him. His comb seriously worries me. It's so large and I'm not convinced that it's done growing. I understand that every individual bird is different but as far as he goes, is this commonly seen in non-bearded silkie cockerels?

 

[LynnaePB]

I hope I am posting in the correct place. I have a couple of questions about my silkie cockerel named, "Blue". He was hatched on August 13th, 2019. I'm wondering what color he is considered. From what I have learned so far, it seems that he is non-bearded. He weighs 2lbs and his comb is the biggest thing about him. His comb seriously worries me. It's so large and I'm not convinced that it's done growing. I understand that every individual bird is different but as far as he goes, is this commonly seen in non-bearded silkie cockerels? View attachment 1993558 View attachment 1993552

I'm not yet very experienced but I'd say he looks the most like a blue, he's too light to be black in my opinion.

Looking at him I can see he has a beard though it does look a little small and the wattles a little large so he may be partially bearded (meaning he only has one copy of the bearded gene instead of two as the bearded gene is incompletely dominant). Those muffs/puffy cheeks of his really give it away that he is at least partially bearded. If he is partially bearded and you bred him to a bearded silkie he should produce 50% offspring with full beards and 50% with partial/half beards, if you bred to a non bearded you'd get 50% non bearded and 50% partial bearded offspring.

That comb is quite large, I know beards reduce wattle size but I don't know about comb size. Just looking at google images I'm definitely seeing a lot of the non-bearded roosters with some very large combs! I'd be interested to know if partial bearded or non bearded silkies tend to have bigger combs as well.

 

[Jeddice]

Just a few of my 60 something silkies! LOL!

j

Beautiful, how old are these beauties?

 

[sue25]

Few of mine.