Silkied Ameraucana Project

[Sylviaanne]

I have these two lovely split cockerels available if anyone up here in the PNW is interested in this project - I cannot have rooster so they must be re-homed. They were hatched 4/5/14 from Silkied AM eggs.

Why don't they look like Silkies?

 

[wolftracks]

Why don't they look like Silkies?

You mean Silkies Silkies? Or that they have smooth feathering? There are a lot of splits that produce the Silkied feathers in Ameraucanas, but if you mean Silkies, They are not bred to Silkies. Sorry if I'm not understanding, but looks like you are asking when they don't look like the Silkie breed when they are Silkied Ameraucanas.

 

[Sylviaanne]

You mean Silkies Silkies? Or that they have smooth feathering? There are a lot of splits that produce the Silkied feathers in Ameraucanas, but if you mean Silkies, They are not bred to Silkies. Sorry if I'm not understanding, but looks like you are asking why they don't look like the Silkie breed when they are Silkied Ameraucanas.

Yes. I thought that they should look like Silkies if they are called Silkie Ameraucanas and why do they have smooth feathers?

 

[ChickenLeg]

I'll stay up-to-date on this threa. I first saw another thread grouping together silkied ameraucanas when I first joined BYC. After raising ameraucanas, I feel like I don't care too much for the pure breds, instead I'd perfer to work with something that has no set guide. Standards seem too much like a contest and that's not why I raise chickens. From reading many post in here, I feel as if this thread is filled with less competitive chicken breeders. My kind of chicken fanciers!

 

[LBKS]

Yes. I thought that they should look like Silkies if they are called Silkie Ameraucanas and why do they have smooth feathers?

Why do they have normal feathering?

The gene that makes a bird silkied requires that the bird has two copies of it. If you have two copies, you have the "hairy" look. If you only have one copy of it, you have normal feathering that is indistinguishable from a bird that doesn't carry the gene. However, if you are a carrier (what we call a split) of the gene then with a proper cross to another split bird or a silkied bird you will get some silkied offspring. Those roosters are splits, so they are useful to project members.

Why do we care about splits (with normal feathering)?

A split is most useful for people who already have silkied birds (because you can get 50% silkied offspring from them directly if bred to silkied birds), but if you really have nothing better you can play the long game and use splits to produce silkied birds without having any silkied birds in your flock. With the roosters above you'd breed a split rooster Ameraucana to pure bred Ameraucana hens, producing offspring of which half will be splits. Then take the daughters back to their split father and hatch enough eggs and with luck (that at least one of the daughters was a split too) you will end up with a small amount of silkied birds. There are other ways you could go about it, but that's one example. It'd take a few generations and lots of patience, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Why do Silkied Ameraucanas not look like Silkies?

Silkied Ameraucanas are just Ameraucanas with the "hairy" feathering. Silkies are a completely different breed with distinctive traits such as black skin, 5 toes, etc.


Did that clear it up a bit?

 

[LBKS]

Here is a Silkied Splash for example, and a lot of splits. So all those normal feathered birds only have one copy of the gene, like the roosters that sparked the question.

 

[EdenCamp]

I just have one silkied cochin at this point. Yes, I believe you've answered my question -- that a split for silkied will pass that split on in a small percentage, so within that generation (a regular feathered group off by themselves, some of which are split) there could possibly be silkied offspring from that group. Please correct me if I don't have it right. THANKS!

You are right. There are 2 ways to approach this.

One is deliberate, painfully slow but controlled - carefully test breeding to identify splits that do carry this specific gene. The advantage is you know which is which, who is who, and don't accidently cull genes that you wish to propagate - as well as not tossing a wildcard out into the entire gene pool. The disadvantage is you are going to have to separate into pairs or very small groups, wait for the hen to clear from each of her sons in succession, hatch a bunch of eggs and wait to see if the breeding is between two splits and produces silkieds. Daughters of the hen can then be test bred to brothers that were proven splits, eggs hatched and if silkied offspring pop up - the daughter is also a split. Over and over until you build a base of proven splits and silkied offspring.

The second, that as I understand you are asking about, is to introduce the gene into your flock, let them do their thing and just wait and hope for random mating's to produce more silkied to snatch out and work with somewhere down the line in time. That could work. Keep in mind tho that these are recessive genes and the more birds in the flock without it the better the chance it will simply evaporate, diluted out or culled out either by your hand or circumstances. Kind of throw a bunch of mud against the wall and hope some sticks approach!

Perhaps a modified approach blending the two would be your best bet. You'd need a second pen that only contained the silkied gene hen and her offspring. Since it's a female you'd want to rotate at least a couple unrelated roos to her for some diversity in her offspring and then pull those roos before they could mate any of her daughters. Keep she and her offspring together, let them interbreed and wait for silkieds to pop up. This route keeps your possible splits concentrated and does not leach the gene out into your general population uncontrolled. Cull any non-silkied roos so that any offspring produced will be at least splits from hens that may or may not be splits. .Do not take any offspring descended from the original hen into your non-silkied group.

Keep in mind, any route chosen you are going to be hatching a LOT of eggs for each silkied chick to appear! Statisticly, with 2 splits breeding, you'll have to hatch 8 eggs for 1 silkied chick. Any breedings where BOTH parents are not splits will produce NONE visibly silkied. Never mind the offspring that "may" be splits from only one of the parents being a split, it's a shrinking possibility at best. Once you have your silkied base you can deliberately outcross for known 100% splits and take your breeding program forward accordingly.

 

[schatze]

I had 7 of my dozen hatch on 30 June. 6 splash, 1 blue, all but one roo had silkied feathers. I've since lost the blue and one splash (they have always had free range of the yard, which is an acre, so who knows what got the 2--I've only ever had 1 blue chicken survive my backyard; the whiter the bird, the better its chances. They've all been cared for by my polish crested, Licorice, since the start. She initially had help from my buff orpington Corn, but she bailed out after the 2nd week after hatch. Licorice seems to be doing a great job with the 5 babies. They're really fast, and hard to catch. I know the normal feathered (Re), and the one with the darkest beak (Mi) are male, and at least one of the others is female--the others looks so similar, I'm not sure if I've seen all of them or just the same one over and over. Here's a picture of one of the others.

 

[LBKS]

What a cutie! Sounds like you had a good hatch, sorry your predators seem to like your blues so well - blues are pretty too!

I thought I had lost another black Silkied this morning (and I wondered how she had gotten out of her pen!) but on closer inspection it was a barn cat sleeping awkwardly like the dead in a pile of grass.

Silly cats.

 

[FFatMH]

Hi! I'm out in Colorado and am SUPER interested in the Silkied Ameraucana project. I'm gearing up to hatch and breed from the hatchlings. Anyone have, seen, or will have hatching eggs soon? I am particularly fond of the Splash. ")