Silkie X Bantam Cochin Breeding Q

[RememberTheWay]

Yes, if you cross silkie-feathering carriers back to silkied individuals, about half would be silkied and the other half would carry the gene.

The silkied feathering gene is given the symbol 'h' for hookless feathering, so smooth feathering is H+ for the wild type of that gene. Thus, silkied individuals are h/h, while carriers of the gene who are not outwardly silkied are H+/h. That means that a silkied individual always passes on h to its offspring, that's all it has to give, but a carrier has an equal chance of passing on H+ or h. So the genetic combinations possible for the offspring are either H+/h or h/h, with equal odds of either combination being inherited.

Thanks. Very helpful. That was what I was thinking as far how it worked and percentages but your summary helped bring it all together . Do you know if their are any hybrids breeds that are intentionally crossed with silkies and what the name of the crosses are?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Glad that helped! It always helps me a lot to break it down like that when I'm looking at the inheritance of a gene.


As far as Silkie hybrids, off the top of my head, there are Satins. There's work to get them standardized as basically a non-silkied Silkie, but they started off as a hybrid, often between a Silkie and a Cochin bantam. Very often, they still carry the silkied gene despite being smooth-feathered.

'Polkies', Silkie-Polish crosses, are fairly common as well.

I believe one hatchery crossed Easter-eggers with Silkies for a few generations to get silkied Easter-eggers, but I'm not sure if they still sell them. I think it was My Pet Chicken that had those?

And they'd probably not be considered a hybrid at this point because they are in the standard now, but Showgirls are naked neck Silkies that at one point were a cross between naked neck chickens and Silkies.

I know that a lot of backyarders get Silkies and end up with mixes of them as well, but I don't think there are necessarily any specific names for them or anything. I've had a few of those in my flock over the years.