The American Paint Silkie

[Whiskey Bay]

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I LOVE these paints...So don't take this the wrong way(just reminded me of something)...but we used to have this lil Bichon Frise that always came into the clinic for a bath and grooming.His owner didn't keep him like a normal 'poofy' dog.He always came in with black grease spots all over where he slept under the cars....Lol... I guess he was a 'painted Bichon'...lol...

 

[HappyTailsFarm]

Ok, I am super excited since I have a love of paint horses, and really want silkies, however I have a question too, the 'holes in the pigment', to me these aren't 'holes', its simply lack of pigment or pink/white pigment, that is how it is in horses, in my opinion you want this, would be part of the standard, if it does not negatively affect the birds, why get rid of it, I have this on atleast one of my hens, her feet are like that, I love it, it screams paint, I always wanted to have birds that extented that, actually, the dutch I had a friend get me, not very good in certain ways, have legs that are spotted, the birds however are not, they are white with black or blue/slate spots, looks cool when you think of paint-so why get rid of the 'holes' since their not 'holes'?

Also, I don't understand how they are already being shown to introduce them since there seems to be alot of inconsistency in breeding, you can really call it a variety until that is all it produces, idk, but that seems more logical, it needs to produce consistently-

 

[debstein]

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Because the breed standard for silkies requires black skin, therefore the "holes" in skin pigment, whether you like them or not, are a fault. Silkies are different than colored horses, in that, you can still have the black skin and light feathering. And since it is relatively easy to get rid of the pigment holes, and have the bird meet the existing breed standard - why not do it? Trust me, it would be much more difficult to get a silkie variety accepted that did not have dark skin over its entire body. As for why they are being shown already, the birds we showed at Shawnee had very nice type and met all existing Silkie standard requirements, in fact, we received some nice comments from judges and show officials about them. Second - you have to show a variety for 5 years before it can be submitted for acceptance, and 5 generations from now, these Paint silkies will be very standardized. So, it is best to get them "out" there as soon as possible, to begin the 5 year clock counting down.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

I posted this on the ASBC forum last week but there was no reply so I thought I would try here.

I bathed my paint cockerel yesterday and as I was blowing him dry, I was looking carefully at the feathering. I had always assumed that the black spots were individual black feathers among the white background, but I did find several feathers that were both black and white.

Is this a normal variation and to be expected?

 

[Bat Cave Silkies]

I don't have the answer, but I will try to check my 3 today to see if I can find any feathers like that; of course, it's only 20 degrees, windy & snowing again, so who knows if I can get to it?? lol

 

[HappyTailsFarm]

Quote:
Because the breed standard for silkies requires black skin, therefore the "holes" in skin pigment, whether you like them or not, are a fault. Silkies are different than colored horses, in that, you can still have the black skin and light feathering. And since it is relatively easy to get rid of the pigment holes, and have the bird meet the existing breed standard - why not do it? Trust me, it would be much more difficult to get a silkie variety accepted that did not have dark skin over its entire body. As for why they are being shown already, the birds we showed at Shawnee had very nice type and met all existing Silkie standard requirements, in fact, we received some nice comments from judges and show officials about them. Second - you have to show a variety for 5 years before it can be submitted for acceptance, and 5 generations from now, these Paint silkies will be very standardized. So, it is best to get them "out" there as soon as possible, to begin the 5 year clock counting down.

I understand that that is the standard of silkies, however if this is a trait that seems to go with the coloring, why not make an exception to the lack of pigment for that variety only?

 

[Brody's Broodello]

Quote:
Because the breed standard for silkies requires black skin, therefore the "holes" in skin pigment, whether you like them or not, are a fault. Silkies are different than colored horses, in that, you can still have the black skin and light feathering. And since it is relatively easy to get rid of the pigment holes, and have the bird meet the existing breed standard - why not do it? Trust me, it would be much more difficult to get a silkie variety accepted that did not have dark skin over its entire body. As for why they are being shown already, the birds we showed at Shawnee had very nice type and met all existing Silkie standard requirements, in fact, we received some nice comments from judges and show officials about them. Second - you have to show a variety for 5 years before it can be submitted for acceptance, and 5 generations from now, these Paint silkies will be very standardized. So, it is best to get them "out" there as soon as possible, to begin the 5 year clock counting down.

I understand that that is the standard of silkies, however if this is a trait that seems to go with the coloring, why not make an exception to the lack of pigment for that variety only?

The lack of color can be bred out and the "holes" filled in within a few gens of breeding & culling. That has been done before with other colors. If you go and lower the standard for one color you will do the opposite of what a standard is for. It is something to breed UP to, not lower your stock down to. An example would be to allow split wings in silkies since there seems to be such a problem with so many birds having it. So don't make it a DQ, allow the defect to breed on, then soon all silkies will have split wings, because it has become fashion and all the winners at the shows have it.
If you look at the Throughbred Racehorse, from the 50's. Very few horses bled through the nose after a work out or race. Then one horse who did very well bled, soon everyone wanted to breed to him. So the next gen of horses 50% bled. The tracks started to allow those that bled to get Lasix to stop the bleeding, the horses ran faster on the drug, then they were bred because they all won. The next gen 100% of the foals bled. Now 3 gens from the first, you have horses that can't run well without drugs, they all bleed, and you have created an industry of let's try to fix it now. So now the horse tracks have banned the drugs, they still have horses that bleed, can't run fast enough to win so they get sent off to the dog food market, and the market is flooded with horses that are not strong enough to do the job, that their grandparents could do, faster and at longer distances.
It is a case of "lowering" the standard, and destroying the critter that has taken generations to perfect. JMO

 

[rilly10]

Sorry to hijack but the new silkie book is here! Thought you paint lovers would be interested! There is a paint on the cover too! https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=5487703#p5487703

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

I have had my paint trio for 6 weeks now and took some pics quickly with my phone Sunday. Not great pictures, but you can see how much they have grown. I'm very pleased with how they are growing out.

Here are the "before" and "after" pics.... The first ones I took the day I got them home. Ignore the blue on the pullet...we were marking them to identify when choosing them and got a little too much on her.

 

[pokey]

So how much colored feathering of color in one spot would be too much? Or have you reached that standard yet?