Silkie X Bantam Cochin Breeding Q

[GardenAndRoost]

Updated photo of my first hatchling. I’m wondering if sexing them by their feathers would work for this mix with the bantam cochins I used the technique and was 5/5 correct.

 

[Clodill4rel]

Updated photo of my first hatchling. I’m wondering if sexing them by their feathers would work for this mix with the bantam cochins I used the technique and was 5/5 correct.

Oh my gosh how cute !!!!!!!

 

[Gutgirl]

So cute! I have a Birchen Cochin Rooster and I have silkies and other hens but my silkie went broody and hatched 2 babies July 5th out of 6 eggs first time momma and not he of them have black skin but One of them have 5 toes like a silkie the other one does not have 5 toes like a silkie. First and second pic is them at 3 days old. Rest is today I believe they’re both cockerels. We shall see. All black one is the silkie and the one with white like my birchen Cochin only has black skin like it’s momma. Rest pics is dad and mom. My showgirl silkie is pic with babies hatched them she stole the eggs to hatch. This is what my Cochin silkie mix look like. The last pictures are what my Cochin/ silkies hatched last year that my friend has. Can’t wait to see what your babies look like.

 

[Gutgirl]

So cute! I have a Birchen Cochin Rooster and I have silkies and other hens but my silkie went broody and hatched 2 babies July 5th out of 6 eggs first time momma and not he of them have black skin but One of them have 5 toes like a silkie the other one does not have 5 toes like a silkie. First and second pic is them at 3 days old. Rest is today I believe they’re both cockerels. We shall see. All black one is the silkie and the one with white like my birchen Cochin only has black skin like it’s momma. Rest pics is dad and mom. My showgirl silkie is pic with babies hatched them she stole the eggs to hatch. This is what my Cochin silkie mix look like. The last pictures are what my Cochin/ silkies hatched last year that my friend has. Can’t wait to see what your babies look like.

It’s suppose to say they both have black skin. Idk why it says not he of them.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Updated photo of my first hatchling. I’m wondering if sexing them by their feathers would work for this mix with the bantam cochins I used the technique and was 5/5 correct.

Probably not, but you could always look just for fun! I always do--and have had about 55% accuracy with that technique over 5 years now and almost 100 chicks. Feather sexing is from a specific cross that makes a sexlink, so the resulting offspring from that cross will not have the proper genes to continue producing more feather-sexable chicks. Often, when it seems to work, it's only coincidental; it is, after all, a 50-50 shot on each chick, so pretty good odds you'll happen to guess correctly.

 

[Honey Meadows]

Here we are in the morning! Dry, fluffing put, and finding our footing. Lots of silkie traits - black skin, 5 toes, very fluffy and long first feathering. Lavender underbelly & beard with black back/head.

I'm looking at this thread bc I have a silkie roo and 2 bantam cochin hens - how did the babies turn out? I'm hoping mine will breed in Spring

 

[GardenAndRoost]

A very long delayed update!!
These are a couple of the hatch outs from this thread now, 5months later! All came out this beautiful green-black iridescent colour. Not sure of the sexes of either - open to your comments!!!

As you can see they very heavily took on after the bearded white silkie hen. Must have had recessive black? If I’m learning my breeding terms correctly ! They all have 5 toes and some are black and some are a more of a tan colour like the lavender bantam cochin in this thread (the father and only rooster in the flock).

 

[GardenAndRoost]

A very long delayed update!!
These are a couple of the hatch outs from this thread now, 5months later! All came out this beautiful green-black iridescent colour. Not sure of the sexes of either - open to your comments!!!

As you can see they very heavily took on after the bearded white silkie hen. Must have had recessive black? If I’m learning my breeding terms correctly ! They all have 5 toes and some are black and some are a more of a tan colour like the lavender bantam cochin in this thread (the father and only rooster in the flock).

 

[RememberTheWay]

Lavender is caused by a recessive gene that dilutes solid black to pale gray. Solid (extended) black is dominant over patterns, so what you most likely will see from this cross is black chicks who feather in mostly solid with other colors leaking through from their mothers. I am assuming that your White Silkie is recessive white as that's the more common gene for White Silkies. White Silkies are also often carrying other color genes beneath their white outer coating, so it's hard to say what you could get from her. She may even carry Lavender and make Lavender chicks instead of Black chicks with your rooster.

As for other traits, I would expect their offspring to have crests that are smaller than their mothers', combs that are somewhere between the walnut comb of a Silkie and a rose comb, pale skin like their father, and extra toes on most of their feet. The gene that causes extra toes is weird and sometimes chicks who are a cross between extra toe and not extra toe chickens will have an extra toe on one foot and not on the other. Also, the chicks from the White Silkie will either all be bearded (if she has two copies of the gene) or half will be bearded (if she only has one copy of the gene). Since the other Silkie is non-bearded and the gene for bearding is dominant, none of her offspring will have beards when bred to a Cochin. Editing, one last important detail that somehow slipped my mind, silkied feathering is recessive, so none of the offspring of a smooth-feathered Cochin crossed to a Silkie will be silkied, but all will carry the gene.

So question on the silkie feathering. If you took the F1 crosses that were smooth feathered but carrying the gene and bred them back to a silkie would your F2 generation hatch with a percentage have silkied feathers then?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

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.