Silkies.... IF I cross a pure white with a pure black what will I get?

[Country Living Farm]

Pure white with pure black what will I get.. Also I may get a blue silkie. If crossed, what will I get...any suggestions?

 

[Rootball]

Not sure what genetics are in the silkie per say and which are hidden in your silkie, but you will probably get black or white not some mixture.

White isnt a color it is an absence of color and some white birds are black birds with white genes. It makes sense because some of the whites leak red but they do pretty well covering black. a lot of black birds have silver in them because silver also covers reds. Blacks also have some melanisers and enhancers.... anyhoo im sure you will soon get a silkie expert on here.


As to the blue...you will want to cross it to the black. Look up the way that blue works its is an incomplete dominant. blue and black will produce more blues and blacks. blue and blue will produce blacks, blues and splashes. splash to black will produce all blues

 

[barred-rocks-rock]

u would probably get black

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

What you get is completely unpredictable--white turns OFF the display of genetically present colour and pattern genes, so they can't be selected for or against. All you can select for is type and traits that don't relate to plumage colouring.

If you breed buffs, you will select against birds with a smutty undercolour and for birds with even colouring. If you breed blues or blacks, you will select against birds with colour in their hackles and for the blackest of black or for blue that is not so dark that you have to guess whether it is blue or black. If you breed partridge, you will select for vibrant colouring, good penciling in the females and black breast in the males. Etc. Birds with poor patterns or poor colouring are removed from the breeding pen.

Consider if you will, breeding a buff to a partridge, then taking those offspring and breeding to a blue, then back to buff, then to black, then to red, then to grey, then to parrtidge then to .... What colour will those birds be? And what genes will they pass?

This is pretty much what that white is underneath the white OFF switch--generations of mixed colour breeding. With the exception of a double dose of white, every white bird is genetically unique from every other white.

 

[walkswithdog]

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That information is incorrect.

Sonoran wrote the correct response.

 

[CindyS]

when I had a white silkie roo with buff, blue, black, and partridge, I got all the colors of the hens in the chicks, NO white. but I suppose every situation is different depending what genes they carry.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

White is silkies is almost always recessive, so getting white offspring by breeding to a non-white can't be expected. If it occurs, you then know that the non-white parent carries one copy of recessive white.

 

[Henk69]

Quote:
That information is incorrect.

No, black is pretty dominant albeit leaky

 

[wolfie]

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So what happends if you cross splash to blue

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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50% splash, 50% blue