Sizzle breeding question

[sarahssizzles]

I can only tell you what experience has taught us. Breeding Sizzle back to Silkie only strengthens the silkie feather gene, producing more silkie feathered birds. Since Sizzles don't have Silkie feathers, that seems counter productive. If you are taking that generation and breeding back to Sizzles (frizzled) then you may improve your type & get proper feathering but, your still looking at only 20 - 25% success rate. Which isn't any better then your frizzled cochin/silkie cross. Plus you have to find a Sizzle Roo that is producing type & the breed is just starting to get to that point.

SarahsSizzles

 

[sarahssizzles]

Danny, sounds like you may have a good start. Toes & combs are the first big challenge to overcome. You might try breeding to a nice Silkie and just keep the ones with correct combs & toes for your next generation.

 

[jimnjay]

Like Sarah, I have been working on Sizzles for 4 years. I got a bit discouraged this year after loosing all my original birds in December. I had rescued eggs and hatched out around 20 birds from my own stock. Sarah graciously gave me some eggs from her group to hatch as well. Imaging my disappointment to find at the end of it all that I did not get one Smooth male in the group of around 28 Sizzles. I love the Frizzled bird so I have stuck to breeding smooth male to frizzled female. Like Sarah mentioned 50% had Silkie feathers. I have been breeding Sizzle females to Silkie roos for the past two years. I desperately wanted to breed Sizzle to sizzle this year. I ended up selling off almost all of my stock but have kept one Sizzle pullet and two of the smooth sizzle pullets. I have a frizzled cochin and I am going to try to start from scratch again. I will put the smooth sizzles with the frizzled Cochin and the Frizzled female with a Silkie again to diversify. I know after hatching 20-30 birds I will be lucky to end up with 5 breeders. Sarah has an advantage since she has several pens to work with and she will be receiving one of my f4 girls this fall to help with blood lines. Breeding these birds is a long term project due to the trade off on feather type over DQs, single combs and four toes to name a few. I may not be doing much with it other than just having the joy of the actual birds around but it is well worth proceeding with the five toed frizzled Cochin and a Silkie and keep good records in case you get hooked on them as some of the others of us have. Good luck.

 

[walkswithdog]

One of my male smooths is DQ for single comb and red colored comb and wattles, he is otherwise dark skinned, five toed, excellent in foot feather and spectacularly colored in a blue based red hackled/wing bowed bird.

The other is black with angel wings, walnut but too bright to be mulberry comb, dark skin five toes, excellent foot feathering.

Both males are showing nice smooth crests, the Black's slightly better than the Blue/Red but the blue/red has been slower to develop.
Edited to add photos of both smooth males...

My two pullets are a blue very very typey Sizzle, and one that is also Sizzle but thinner feathers and little crest (silly mohawk). Which may or may not develop later.

All are from Sarah and BBS.

My last breeding option is a very nice Sizzle Splash Roo.

If I breed the Sizzle Splash Roo to the Sizzle pullets - I'm going to get some frazzles, which means cull. But then I wouldn't be breeding birds with any real DQs, to each other.



If I breed either Sizzle pullet to the either of the Smooth Boys with DQs am I going in the wrong direction or also just ending up culling harder?

Kind of a rock and a hard place if I want to go on.

 

[mom2chicksandpups]

They are pretty!

 

[walkswithdog]

Thank you!!! I do think both boys are good looking, just wish Sheridan - the blue and red at least had a walnut or smooth comb.

 

[mom2chicksandpups]

I agree that's the prettiest one. I like pretty mixed breed chickens. We have a few that we plan to keep for eating eggs only. They make good pets sometimes. I am not into showing birds, personally.

 

[LilPeeps]

Quote:
I agree, but the sizzle is already past the frizzle cochin/silkie cross. That breeding will bring you back to step one, whereas silkie x sizzle will be much further along and could save years worth of breeding cochin x silkie to get to where that one sizzle is. The silkie gene isn't a hard thing to breed out and it's a lot easier than starting from scratch where you're going to have to introduce birds with the gene anyway.

 

[walkswithdog]

Hey Julie - could you back up a few posts and look at my breeding question too? I posted a few pics for reference.

Hoping Mom will forgive me for hijacking the end of the thread...

 

[LilPeeps]

You're going to get the best results with the sizzle x sizzle breeding, but you will get about 25% curlys. The quality of life on those birds isn't great. You could do the sizzle x smooth males and just pick out the very best of them, smooth and frizzled, and cross the sizzles with the smooths and reserve the frizzled for future frizzle x smooth matings.

ETA: What's your goal colorwise?