Single combs on silkies?

[reeve]

Are single combs on silkie bantams normal or should the sc birds be culled?

 

[ladybug4ut1]

Silkies are supposed to have walnut combs......

 

[moduckman]

Cull. This is a bad trait.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

If you breed a single comb to a walnut comb you will get only 25% single comb offspring, and that is if the walnut combed bird is heterozygous for both pea and rose comb genes. If homozygous the percentage of single combs will only be 12.5%

So, depending on other traits you need to decide if it is worth using the bird. If everything else is there, by all means use the bird, but be aware that some of hte offspring will inherit the single comb and all will inherit an opportunity for it to show up in later generations.

 

[Teresaann24]

it is a bad trait but it can be bred out if the single comb bird has other good qualities matched with another good type comb and quality bird the single comb can be bred out but the thing is the offspring may carry the single combed gene. I am no expert on genetics but from my exprineces this has worked for me.

 

[moduckman]

if you have a limited number of birds then you can try to breed the single comb out. Still, if given the oportunity, I would not breed this bird (male or female). Why try to brred it out when you can just breed birds with the correct comb?

 

[Kev]

The majority of silkies actually have a modified rose comb, not a true walnut comb. "True" walnut comb is a genetic combination of rose and pea. Most silkies don't have pea comb gene.

Roosters pure(homozygous) for rose comb have much lower fertility than any other comb type, and that includes roosters with only one copy(heterozygous) for rose comb. The end result is going to be that roosters not pure for rose comb are going to have normal or near normal fertility and therefore potentially sire far more offspring than any rooster pure for rose comb(especially in a situation of high hen to rooster ratio. In pairs or trios, a pure rose combed rooster can breed the hen frequently enough to achieve "normal" egg fertility rates). So that single comb is going to "float around" the genepool.

BTW, hens are not affected by this problem- hens pure for rose comb have normal fertility.

Wyandotte breeders have the right approach to this situation- by being more open and informative about this issue. Single combs are not wanted but understood to be a byproduct of the pure rose comb rooster fertility problem.

 

[FrizzleFreak]

random little thing: in china and other countries where silkies are used for medicinal purposes, single combed silkies are very common. if you're going for quality and you aren't gonna kill your birds to sell on the black market, cull single combs if you have enough birds.