Hello, I have a BBS pen with about 18 BBS Silkies. I am starting to figure out which ones are boys and which are girls. My question was when I confirm which are boys I wanted to keep only 1 rooster for the girls (should be roughly half of the 18). Which color do I choose? In other words which color rooster gives a better equally balanced ratio of Blue Black Splash chicks (not to give me like almost all blue, etc).
Blue, but the color of hens you keep makes a difference too. Blue is one of those funny genes. It is not sex linked so each chick gets one copy from each of its parents. If the chick gets two copies of the blue gene, it is splash. If it gets one copy of blue and one not-blue, it shows blue. If it gets no copies of blue, it is black, If you cross Splash with Splash, it gets a copy of blue from each parent so it will be Splash. Crossing Black with Black works the same and you get black. If you cross Splash with Black, they will all be blue. If you cross Blue with Splash, you get some Blue and some Splash. If you cross Blue with Black, you get some Blue and some Black. Odds are just odds. You really need to hatch a lot for the averages to mean much but in both these cases the odds are about half will be blue and half will be the other color. If you cross Blue with Blue, the odds are that about ¼ will be Splash, ½ will be Blue, and ¼ will be Black. Since this is not a sex linked gene, it does not matter which parent is Splash, Blue, or Black. It's going to be hard to not get more blue than the other colors but a Blue rooster is your best bet for balance.
Keep a Blue Rooster, the genetic variance in Blue is greater than the other colors, My second choice would be a Splash.
