Silver Leghorns

[haileyE]

I'm sorry to bother you but. I have a silver leghorn rooster but I need a hen that is the same breed. I'm doing 4-H and I wanted to do a dreading pair. Do you know were I can get some hens. If you sell them I'm in Ohio. But I've been searching for 2 months but no luck.

 

[Rod-T]

I have silver leghorn hatching eggs avaliable

 

[areasoner]

I have a trio of hens and one roo. He's an absolute gentleman and the girls are the best broody hens I've ever seen. We get one small to medium white egg from each most days.

 

[ejcrist]

I have silver leghorn hatching eggs avaliable

I know your post is almost a year old but I was just wondering - are you a breeder of Silver Leghorns? I have Light Brown chicks I got from a breeder and I'm planning to breed them this Fall but I couldn't find any silvers from a breeder. I just got some silver chicks from Murray McMurray and I'm thinking to breed one of my light brown cockerels to the best couple of silver pullets, and then breeding the best out of those for a generation or two to hopefully end up with silvers with a workable type. I have no idea if it'll work or not but I'm figuring once you obtain a decent type it'll just be a matter of correcting the color and going from there. I've been looking for breeders of silvers for a couple of months but haven't had any luck.

 

[ejcrist]

I have a trio of hens and one roo. He's an absolute gentleman and the girls are the best broody hens I've ever seen. We get one small to medium white egg from each most days.

You had a broody Leghorn hen? I've never seen a Leghorn go broody. I imagine it happens but I'd think it'd be rare.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I know your post is almost a year old but I was just wondering - are you a breeder of Silver Leghorns? I have Light Brown chicks I got from a breeder and I'm planning to breed them this Fall but I couldn't find any silvers from a breeder. I just got some silver chicks from Murray McMurray and I'm thinking to breed one of my light brown cockerels to the best couple of silver pullets, and then breeding the best out of those for a generation or two to hopefully end up with silvers with a workable type. I have no idea if it'll work or not but I'm figuring once you obtain a decent type it'll just be a matter of correcting the color and going from there. I've been looking for breeders of silvers for a couple of months but haven't had any luck.

So youre saying you have nicer browns then silvers and want to use the browns to improve the silvers type?

The color is easy to work with back and forth so you wont have to worry about getting the type then worry about color later. Its easy to deal with color as youre improving type.
IDK what all you know about the crossing of these colors but I share what I know.

Light browns and silvers are only one gene different. The silver/gold gene which is sex linked also. Silvers are silver based and light browns are gold based.
Hens have to be one or the other silver or gold. Roosters can be one or the other or carry one silver gene and one gold gene.

Gold rooster to gold hen = gold pullets and gold cockerels
Gold rooster to silver hen = gold pullets and silver/gold cockerels
Silver rooster to silver hen = silver pullets and silver cockerels
Silver rooster to gold hen = silver pullets and silver/gold cockerels
Silver/gold rooster to gold hen = 1/2 silver pullets 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 gold cockerels 1/2 silver gold cockerels
Silver/gold rooster to silver hen = 1/2 silver pullets 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 silver cockerels 1/2 silver/gold cockerels
You can go either way the first generation and will end up will all cockerels being silver/gold.
Id put the best cockerel back to gold (brown) hens then you will get 1/2 gold and 1/2 silver/gold cockerels. The gold cockerels will be regular light brown chicks and look like standard brown leghorns. The silver/gold cockerel chicks will be the chipmunk striped but instead of the brown tones they will have grey tones.
Put those cockerels back to your brown hens. Keep repeating until you get to type you want. Along the way you will be getting 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 silver pullets. At some point when youre close to type breed your silver/gold cockerel to some of the best silver pullets youve produced.
That will still give 1/2 silver and 1/2 gold pullets but it will give you the 1/2 silver/gold cockerels and 1/2 pure silver cockerels. They will look alike for a bit so youll have to grow them some and cull any with gold, brown, or yellow. Youll know the pure silver cockerels since you have the silver chicks now and will see how they grow and look.
Keep a few silver cockerels and then you can breed them to any hens gold or silver and get all silver pullets. Pick you best pullets and youll now have pure silver pullets and your pure silver roosters of type and pretty much be your own line.
Hope that helped and wasnt to hard to follow. Theres a lot of ways to get there but thats the way I did it and I think breeding the cockerels back to the browns over and over got me to the type of my browns (which was also a lot better then my silvers) faster then if I would of bred offspring to offspring.

 

[ejcrist]

So youre saying you have nicer browns then silvers and want to use the browns to improve the silvers type?

The color is easy to work with back and forth so you wont have to worry about getting the type then worry about color later. Its easy to deal with color as youre improving type.
IDK what all you know about the crossing of these colors but I share what I know.

Light browns and silvers are only one gene different. The silver/gold gene which is sex linked also. Silvers are silver based and light browns are gold based.
Hens have to be one or the other silver or gold. Roosters can be one or the other or carry one silver gene and one gold gene.

Gold rooster to gold hen = gold pullets and gold cockerels
Gold rooster to silver hen = gold pullets and silver/gold cockerels
Silver rooster to silver hen = silver pullets and silver cockerels
Silver rooster to gold hen = silver pullets and silver/gold cockerels
Silver/gold rooster to gold hen = 1/2 silver pullets 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 gold cockerels 1/2 silver gold cockerels
Silver/gold rooster to silver hen = 1/2 silver pullets 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 silver cockerels 1/2 silver/gold cockerels
You can go either way the first generation and will end up will all cockerels being silver/gold.
Id put the best cockerel back to gold (brown) hens then you will get 1/2 gold and 1/2 silver/gold cockerels. The gold cockerels will be regular light brown chicks and look like standard brown leghorns. The silver/gold cockerel chicks will be the chipmunk striped but instead of the brown tones they will have grey tones.
Put those cockerels back to your brown hens. Keep repeating until you get to type you want. Along the way you will be getting 1/2 gold pullets and 1/2 silver pullets. At some point when youre close to type breed your silver/gold cockerel to some of the best silver pullets youve produced.
That will still give 1/2 silver and 1/2 gold pullets but it will give you the 1/2 silver/gold cockerels and 1/2 pure silver cockerels. They will look alike for a bit so youll have to grow them some and cull any with gold, brown, or yellow. Youll know the pure silver cockerels since you have the silver chicks now and will see how they grow and look.
Keep a few silver cockerels and then you can breed them to any hens gold or silver and get all silver pullets. Pick you best pullets and youll now have pure silver pullets and your pure silver roosters of type and pretty much be your own line.
Hope that helped and wasnt to hard to follow. Theres a lot of ways to get there but thats the way I did it and I think breeding the cockerels back to the browns over and over got me to the type of my browns which was also a lot better then my silvers.

Man, thanks for the great details. I didn't know any of that. I'm brand new to breeding and don't have a handle on the genetics yet. I certainly didn't know any of that about browns and silvers only having one gene difference. That surely makes it a little easier.

I got my browns from Bates a little while ago and I have a breeding pair I got from a fellow in FL. I got the silvers from Murray McMurray since I couldn't find anyone that bred silvers, but I figured it'd be possible to cross them and at some point get where I want to be. Your info is really helpful - now I have a plan.