Size and Color

[wmsmith09]

I'm just starting off breeding and I had a few questions as to how to get a certain size and color, which is pretty much the same question. If I want a certain traite, who do I focus on? The hen or the rooster? If I have two different sizes and I want to get small birds out, who should be the smaller one, the male or the female? Any advice would be much appreciated!!

 

[Illia]

Umm, either?


A male of the same breed/type will naturally be 1-2 lbs. heavier than the female, but generally neither gender matter if you're looking for a certain trait. Who has it has it.


Does that help?

 

[wmsmith09]

Well I'm not using the same breed, I'm using two different breeds at two different sizes. I'm mixing Silkies and Seramas, and I want them to come out small...

 

[chickendales]

Quote:
u have raise up all chick up to adault hood pick smallone to breed back to geather
can i ask waht u trying to make

 

[lildinkem]

I have been told by several high quality Exhibition breeders, that you get your size from the hen's side. And to concentrate on "TYPE" and "SIZE" first.
The old sayin; "You need to build the barn first. then paint it!"

 

[Chris09]

What is the overall goal that you are looking to achieve?

Chris

 

[wmsmith09]

Pretty much the same thing they did to create Seramas, just with silkies. Small silkies. But I haven't really chosen what project I want to do, I love working with chickens, I adore them. I'd like to make miniture silkies, but due to space, I can't really work with them at the moment. So I'm going to focus on my Seramas, which is why I was asking about color. Just so I can figure out how their gene pool works. I also kind of liked the mix between Seramas and Silkies, but I wanted to keep them small, more to the Serama size than the Silkie size. The mix actually makes very interesting and pretty birds.

 

[Oregon Blues]

When you are cross breeding, all bets are off about what you will get.

If you want small size, I suggest that you simply keep the birds that grow the smallest and retain those for breeding. If you keep breeding small to small, eventually, you'll end up with something that consistently produces small.

Size is not so cut and dried as some of the other genetic traits that you might select for. If you breed a 1 pound bird to a 3 pound bird, you don't get some 1 pound offspring and some 3 pound offspring. You get a whole range of sizes, including larger than either parent.