Silkies - They’re simply SPECTACULAR!

[ChloeSilkie08]

He's pretty. The white one looks like Poof.View attachment 2433377View attachment 2433379

These two are a couple grow outs of mine. I'm planning to breed for show.

I still can't figure out to name these girls. Do you have a picture of your silver partridge?

This is her now!

 

[ChloeSilkie08]

They are adorable!

Hmmm what you might get is kind of a tricky question. I think they both resemble grays/silver partridge (gray vs silver partridge is pretty much the same color with slight differences in wing patterning, since only gray is recognized in silkies most silver partridges get called gray anyway). The coloring on grays can vary by a lot from light to dark so I'd say the first chick is a very light gray and the second is more of a medium shade. The lighter chick sounds like it has autosomal red of some sort as well, this often indicates a male when found on the wings though not always.

I'm going to refer to gray as silver partridge from here on out though as it makes things a bit simpler to explain I think.

It's kind of hard to say what you would get when crossing them as I'm not exactly sure what they are. If a diluter like blue is involved in the lighter ones color it would affect the outcome of what you might get as well.

If there is no dilution from blue on them then you would probably get blue and black possibly with some leakage or partial patterning when crossing them with a blue rooster. The red might also pass on and show up in the offspring. There is a chance you might get more silver partridge (or even regular partridge which is gold based) if your blue happens to be carrying any partridge genetics that are hidden. Gold vs silver partridge offspring would depend on his ground color though I think blues are usually bred to be silver based so you might be more likely to get more silver partridge if he carries partridge.

When crossing with a recessive white there is a good chance you would get partridge offspring as a lot of recessive white have partridge underneath the white. I think a lot of recessive whites are also gold based so my guess is that you would likely get regular gold based partridge females and probably golden partridge male offspring (which looks more silver than gold but carries both). Again the red might come through though it'll probably be less noticeable in the gold females. All offspring would carry a recessive white gene so when bred back to a recessive white or another chicken with one copy of recessive white you would have the chance to get more recessive whites.

If there is blue diluting either you would have that in the mix making blue/splash a possibility and blue/splash partridge.

I'm using the term partridge very loosely here as in the silkie world most things slightly resembling partridge get called partridge. Some would simply call the improper partridges mix colors. I don't know enough about proper partridge to tell the proper ones apart from the improper ones myself.

That was the complicated answer....the simpler answer is you'd likely be getting mixed colors of sorts.

Here is some updated pictures from today. This is the red leakage one and silver partridge

 

[docteurshepherd]

Sorry but I really cracked up reading the original post lol! "Looks like a dust mop" hahaha.
I don't have any now but they're sweeties I'll post a couple pics of my most recent one I had, Tribble. Unfortunately he ended up being a he..

 

[ChloeSilkie08]

Sorry but I really cracked up reading the original post lol! "Looks like a dust mop" hahaha.
I don't have any now but they're sweeties I'll post a couple pics of my most recent one I had, Tribble. Unfortunately he ended up being a he..

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AWEEE!!!

 

[MysteryChicken]

This is her now!
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She's pretty.

 

[lynnmhari]

I do love my little silkies they are two small but standard hens and a cockeral they are very sweet natured ,laid back and very hardy. I live in the far north ,though I avoid letting them get wet.But in fairness they are not the smartest of chickens and they have no arial predator awareness at all which here would be a big problem if I didnt have other breeds with cockerals that are very alert.So I think people need to know that so they can protect them .I also had an exreeemly mean silkie cockeral who was incredibly cruel to hens but my current boy is lovely

 

[LynnaePB]

Here is some updated pictures from today. This is the red leakage one and silver partridge
View attachment 2434606View attachment 2434608View attachment 2434611

Aww they sure do look beautiful! That red there on the wings is really interesting for a pullet. With how light the gray in her tail/wings and crest is I wouldn't be surprised if she was carrying blue. If I had her and a blue rooster I'd be curious about that pairing as you might get some splash chicks that may get that red too (which would be splash with red leakage sometimes referred to as splash calico). I've seen some breeders have some amazingly beautiful results with splash calicos though I think it is a tough color to work with in regards to ratios of red to splash. It's not a recognized color but it's one I really love and hope to work on in the future as a project.

 

[Mariella posey]

Aww what a cutie! I'd be pretty sure she was a pullet too at this point, she is looking fairly feminine.

No eggs yet? Nine months is pretty late for my girls to start laying though I know silkies can take a long time! If you aren't sure an easy way to check to see if they are laying or close is to feel for the space between the pelvic bones. They are just below the vent (or in some cases my laying girls have them closer to either side of the vent). They are pretty easy to feel as they are quite pokey. There are two and if you can fit two fingers width or more between them it's a good bet they are close to laying or currently laying. If you feel younger pullets and roosters pelvic bones they tend to be closer together. I just went and felt one of my 5 month old cockerels pelvic bones and they were just a little farther than one fingers width apart (my fingers being probably medium width for a female). Anyway it's a useful little trick to check for laying! I use it all the time in pullets I suspect are getting close to laying.

I don't know why I didn't think to use that on her, I know how to do it but I guess it never crossed my mind to use it on a pullet. Right after you posted that I went out to checked and she had a 2 finger space with a soft pouch and wet vent, two days later there was a small tan egg in the coop! I'm moving her to a new pen to see if they are her eggs but I thing they are!

 

[gothicpicasso]

Anyone know when curling would start on a sizzle? One of my chicks has hard feathers coming in. The feet look a bit curly. I know the place I got the eggs from had sizzles but the eggs are random. I mean she, hopefully, is cute either way just didn’t know when it might start showing or if it shows from the start. Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[LynnaePB]

Anyone know when curling would start on a sizzle? One of my chicks has hard feathers coming in. The feet look a bit curly. I know the place I got the eggs from had sizzles but the eggs are random. I mean she, hopefully, is cute either way just didn’t know when it might start showing or if it shows from the start. Thanks for any thoughts.

Your little cutie looks like a smooth feathered baby to me. The frizzle feathers pretty much start coming in that way when they are frizzled and by 1-2 weeks old it's usually fairly obvious from what I've seen. I've seen a few frizzles that have less curl to their feathers but given how smooth your little one is looking now I'd be surprised if she is carrying any frizzle genetics herself. The ones that are both silkie feathered and frizzled can be harder to tell since they don't often look too drastically different than a normal silkie.