I have a black silkie hen. Which do you think would be a better color to have as her mate. As buff or gray rooster? Would the buff wash out the black in the chicks? I also have a bearded white hen and I love the bearded silkies the most.I have two different roos to pick from. One is a bearded roo with a bit of brown in him. The other is a non-bearded pure white rooster. The pure white roo is super sweet and I would like to keep him but I am wondering if I would get non- bearded chicks. The bearded roo is friendly but not as cuddly. What holds me back on him is that I don't mind the brown streaked white chickens but I am afraid if I have one parent with the brown streaks I may not get any pure white chicks. To narrow down the second question a bit- can you still get bearded chicks when one parent is non-bearded? Would it be better to have the bearded but lose the pure white? or will I lose the pure white. The bummer of all of this is I have 7 silkies and only two are hens. GGRRR LOl So I need to make some decisions on who I am keeping and any help would be great.
I notice you use the word "better" in your post a lot. Better is subjective, based on what you are breeding for. Pets? Show? Black X Buff will give chicks that have generally buff coloration on their upper body and generally black coloration on their lower body. Buff is quite leaky when crossed to Black. They definitely won't appear pure black. By gray do you mean Blue or Splash or do you mean Silver Partridge? Blue crossed with Black will yield 50% Blue and 50% Black. Splash crossed with Black will yield 100% Blue. Silver Partridge crossed to Black will give black with silver leakage. The only thing that will give you white chicks is a white X white breeding, as the white in Silkies is recessive. White is also not a color, but an off switch for other colors. Meaning that it is hiding the bird's true genetic color, which could be anything - Black, Buff, Partridge, etc. The result of a white cross will be the result of whatever color it is hiding combined with the non-white bird's color. Beard and ear muffs are a dominant gene. Bearded X non bearded will yield 100% bearded, although the beards will be smaller than a pure bearded bird.
