Can some of the genetics people please give me an opinion if I may have the "smoky gene" here.
I am working on the Silkied Ameraucana project- Long story short Silkied feathering is believed to have spontaneously popped up in pure breed Ameraucanas- original birds were purebred but also very weak and frail likely due to inbreeding. These birds carry no Silkie traits whatsoever and aside from feather type they look like pure Ameraucanas.
A handful of us are breeding these birds and working on different colors besides the Splash color they first appeared in.
Anyway, I have been breeding them for a few years now working towards Lavender. This year my pen consisted of smooth Black Ameraucana all split to silkied feathering and split to Lavender. Everything was going great and I was hatching the expect Blacks and Lavenders with some being smooth and others silkied.
Now the crazy part- every so often I was hatching what appeared to be a Blue Ameraucana??? Chicks have a very grey/ smoky color definitely not a Lavender and definitely not a Black. Closest to a Blue color with a nice even all around greyish color to the chick. Out of about 100+ chicks I have hatched 3 of them total. Breeders are all definitely Blacks- all have a nice green sheen too.
Here is one of the chicks at hatch and the same chick as it started to feather
I have one other chick that looks identical to the chick above. Now even crazier is I went to go take a pic of the first one that hatched like this which is about 3 months old now and I couldn't find it! It somehow has turned Black and looks like the rest of my Black Silkied Feathered Ameraucanas
Of course I did not band it because I just assumed I would be able to tell it apart
So now I have 2 this color that I can identify and are tagged in case they also turn Black lol.
So can someone tell me are they just regular Blues and how on earth did I hatch Blues from my Black Ameraucanas? Or could I possibly have a color mutation here or maybe the smoky gene?
Any guesses or ideas? I can't tell yet the sexes on the 2 Blue ones so I don't know if breeding them together will be possible
Thanks for any opinion you can give me and feel free to tell me I'm crazy
Here is a pic of a Black Silkied, a Lavender Silkied and a "Blue" Silkied all from the same parents (1 cock in the pen with 5 hens- all splits bred by me).
Thanks for any insight you can offer!
I am working on the Silkied Ameraucana project- Long story short Silkied feathering is believed to have spontaneously popped up in pure breed Ameraucanas- original birds were purebred but also very weak and frail likely due to inbreeding. These birds carry no Silkie traits whatsoever and aside from feather type they look like pure Ameraucanas.
A handful of us are breeding these birds and working on different colors besides the Splash color they first appeared in.
Anyway, I have been breeding them for a few years now working towards Lavender. This year my pen consisted of smooth Black Ameraucana all split to silkied feathering and split to Lavender. Everything was going great and I was hatching the expect Blacks and Lavenders with some being smooth and others silkied.
Now the crazy part- every so often I was hatching what appeared to be a Blue Ameraucana??? Chicks have a very grey/ smoky color definitely not a Lavender and definitely not a Black. Closest to a Blue color with a nice even all around greyish color to the chick. Out of about 100+ chicks I have hatched 3 of them total. Breeders are all definitely Blacks- all have a nice green sheen too.
Here is one of the chicks at hatch and the same chick as it started to feather
I have one other chick that looks identical to the chick above. Now even crazier is I went to go take a pic of the first one that hatched like this which is about 3 months old now and I couldn't find it! It somehow has turned Black and looks like the rest of my Black Silkied Feathered Ameraucanas
Of course I did not band it because I just assumed I would be able to tell it apart
So now I have 2 this color that I can identify and are tagged in case they also turn Black lol.
So can someone tell me are they just regular Blues and how on earth did I hatch Blues from my Black Ameraucanas? Or could I possibly have a color mutation here or maybe the smoky gene?
Any guesses or ideas? I can't tell yet the sexes on the 2 Blue ones so I don't know if breeding them together will be possible
Thanks for any opinion you can give me and feel free to tell me I'm crazy
Here is a pic of a Black Silkied, a Lavender Silkied and a "Blue" Silkied all from the same parents (1 cock in the pen with 5 hens- all splits bred by me).
Thanks for any insight you can offer!
