Silkie x Faverolle Large Fowl Project

[Beanoo]

 

[Beanoo]

This is a "jumbo silkie". I was told these were selectively bred for 30 yrs by a German woman starting in the 60's until she died in the 90's. They came to the US at that point. I have 10 of them. I love them. I was told thet would lay 250 eggs/yr. Hens 4lbs, roosters 6lbs. Has anyone ever heard of the German woman?

 

[RememberTheWay]

Two more hybrid chicks hatched from the same parents, white silkie rooster over salmon faverolle hens. This is mostly to keep track of the chick color vs adult. Wish I had taken photos of the older hybrid as a baby chick! I’ll post updates as they grow.

Chick 1: has black stripes down back and head spot. Black skin, 5 toes and very full beard and muff. Hatched 3/15/24

Curious if these chicks actually ended up being one male one female? Since Faverolles are an auto sexing breed?

 

[juci]

Curious if these chicks actually ended up being one male one female? Since Faverolles are an auto sexing breed?

So the chick that has no stripes turned out to be white. I also hatched some more and it’s so interesting. Half the chicks are white and the other half are this other color- maybe some kind of wheaten? The wheaten chicks resemble faverolles in that all the males are dark and the females are lighter.
Here’s a photo of a male and female together and then a close up of each.

 

[juci]

This is two of the female wheaten color, with one of the whites. All the same parents.

 

[RememberTheWay]

This is two of the female wheaten color, with one of the whites. All the same parents.

I like the white one but if you cross those chicks with each other or back to a silkie parent then your F2 generation will have the silkie feathering again. Not sure if that's what you were going for though

 

[RememberTheWay]

This is two of the female wheaten color, with one of the whites. All the same parents.

Also what color were the silkies you used for this project?

So does it look like if the chicks inherit the SF coloring that they did auto sex? That what it sounded like to me with what you wrote at least. I wonder if you only move forward with those males and females (Wheaton's) and either bred them together or back to the Faverolle parents if you could nail down that trait. If you breed the Wheaton F1s together then you should get silkie feathering and possibly continue the auto sexing trait?