Sizzle breeding question

[mom2chicksandpups]

I have a frizzled cochin roo and a few female silkies. They are too young to breed now, but I thought of putting them together later to get some sizzles. To have Sizzle babies, would it be best to keep my frizzled cochin roo and breed him with the silkies or to breed a Sizzle rooster with my Silkie girls? What kind of results should I get each way?

 

[pamperedpoultry]

curious about this too

 

[LilPeeps]

If you start by breeding a frizzled cochin with a silkie, it will take longer to perfect than if you bred sizzle x silkie.

Breeding silkie x frizzled cochin would produce 50% frizzled, 50% smooth. 100% would have smooth (non silkie) feathering, and be het for silkie feathering. They'd likely have 5 toes, dark skin (though not as dark as the silkie parent), walnut combs het for single (unless the silkie was het for single comb, then they would be 50% single comb, 50% walnut comb het for single comb). They'll have feathered feet and blueish earlobes. They should have slight crests.

Breeding silkie x sizzle, a lot of the traits would depend on the breeding of the sizzle, how far along in the development of sizzles is it, etc. Basically you'll get similar results as breeding to a frizzled cochin, but with more silkie features. If the sizzle is carrying the silkie gene, you'll get 50% silkie feathered, 50% smooth het for silkie feathering. The crest will likely be larger than the silkie x cochin and the skin and earlobe color will be better. If both birds are het for single comb, you'll get 25% walnut comb (no single comb gene), 50% walnut (het for single), and 25% single. The het for single and pure walnuts will be indistinguishable.

If you can get your hands on a decent sizzle, it will save you time in breeding in the future.

 

[mom2chicksandpups]

Thanks.

 

[sarahssizzles]

Hi All;

I'm in my fifth generation of breeding Sizzles and you can most certainly breed your Frizzle roo to your Silkie girls. That's how I started. I got one of my nicest hens from my first (P1) breeding and she has also been one of my best producers. I used the shotgun method, because I had the room, and breed everything I could produce that wasn't majorly flawed back into my lines. My goal was to produce as big a gene pool as I could, as well as develop the breed. I know on paper what the percentages are supposed to be but, from a practical standpoint, between hatching losses & normal mortality, I've stayed at a pretty consistant 20 to 25 percent success rate for the type I'm looking for. And I have to say, I haven't found any one type of breeding (Silkie or smooth feathered to frizzled, etc) to any large extent to be better then any other. The percentages, at least for me, have been pretty consistant. Each year the birds get markedly better & there are fewer who I reject compleatly for DQ's. I have noticed that this year I am getting fewer silkie feathered birds & the majority of them are Frizzled. I will breed them back to a good smooth next fall to see what they produce.

This year I sent a lot of eggs out to other people interested in breeding Sizzles. I figured that was the best way to incourage interest in the breed & get others to breed themselves. I have strongly encouraged people to start their own lines because, again, we need to expand the gene pool to make them viable but, I realize it's more "fun" to hatch out what you want first try, even with the odds still running low on getting proper Sizzles, even after 5 generations.

I also started a list for poeple interested in Sizzles to share
information, problems & sucesses. You will find it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sizzles/ with info files & pics as well. We have even setup the beginings of a standard for the breed. We decided for now to work with the Silkie standard with the exception of the change in feather type to hard frizzled instead of the reg Silkie feather. Some folks are already showing, although we usually have to politely "instruct" the judge on what to use as the standard. It's working out so far!

From my experiance & that of another person on the list who breed back to her Silkies often & got a high percentage of silkie feahtered birds, I would say breeding Sizzle to Silkie is just as slow a method as breeding Frizzle to Silkie. You just have different problems to overcome. Your percentages probably won't be any better. My friend had beautiful birds but, if you are breeding good stock to begin with, you are going to get better looking birds. The biggest disadvantage I see is to the gene pool. Less diversity but, bringing in new genes, even if only 1/2 are new, is still helpful. So....it's 50 - 50 as to which way to go. Maybe, if you have the room, do both. Then you are really jump starting you own line & boosting the gene pool! Either way...welcome to the wonderful world of Sizzles!

Hope we see you on the Sizzle list! You can reach me there if you have anymore questions I can help with.
Best of Luck!
SarahsSizzles

 

[DANNY]

I have questions and please don't take it the wrong way. Since sizzle is not yet a recognized breed and has no standard what are you calling dq's and what kind of type should i be looking for? I am also playing with some white, blue,black and buff. I have seen some wierd looking sizzles and i guess i am kinda wierd too.

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

If the lady put the photos up as she has on her board she can show you what she is looking for
it is differen than a frizzled silkie so one has to see it to recognize it
any questions email me

 

[LilPeeps]

I have to disagree that breeding a sizzle with a silkie is just as bad as using a frizzled cochin. The main disadvantage (provided the sizzle doesn't have any major DQs) would be if it were het for the silkie gene. When bred with a silkie, they would produce approximately 50% silkie feathered, 50% smooth (non silkied) offspring. After many years of selevtive, many sizzles are no longer even het for the silkie gene. The sizzle x silkie chicks will be closer to the ideal than a frizzle cochin x silkie.

Quote:
The type should be as close as possible to that of a silkie, with the same DQs, except that the feathering should be non silkied and frizzled.

 

[sarahssizzles]

I'd never take honest interest the wrong way!

To be recognized as a breed takes... at minimum, 5 people breeding for 5 years and keeping darn good records that whole time ...plus a lot of other work including showing. If your going to show you have to have some standard for the judges to judge by. At this time we are using the Silkie standard with the only difference being in the feather type (hard frizzled) Argo, any DQ that would apply to a Silkie would apply to a Sizzle. They have to have, 5 toes, dark skin, crests, walnut or smooth combs, turquoise earlobes, compact bodies, etc.

We are going with all the standard colors, which really makes it "fun" to develop them as a breed when your going in so many different directions! And, we have to have smooths to breed back to so we aren't frazzling our birds by breeding frizzle to frizzle. I breed blacks, blues & Splash & I work pretty hard to keep my colors pure by eliminating any off colors or markings. This year I introduced a blue Polish/Silkie to 5 of my hens to see if I could improve crests. I wasn't at all happy with the results, especially the brown chicks I got. As it turned out, my friend now has the first blue partridge line of Sizzles with the 7 birds that came out of the cross so, she's happy! 2 smooths, 1 frizzled silkie & 4 Sizzles.

Technically the four different feather types you get from the original breeding are all sizzles but the only "real" Sizzle is the frizzled hard feathered ones. For the sake of clarity we refer to them as Sizzles with a capital S and the other feather types as sizzles with a small s. Eliminating straight combs, four toes, silkie feathers, lack of crests, skin color are all problems we've been working on for several years now. And I'm happy to say, it is working. Each generation comes out better!

Best of luck with your breeding program. Check out the Sizzle list and let me know if I can be of any more assistance.
SarahsSizzles

 

[DANNY]

I have a couple of frizzle cochins that at some point had some silkie bred in. They look like cochins with 5 toes.
How would they do bred to a silkie? They have real nice frizzling.