I am not sure if this is the place to ask this, but hopefully it is. I know silkies have black skin, and are considered a delicacy in food circles, but do silkie crosses that have the five toes and other silkie attributes usually have the black skin too? Just curious.
sometimes... most of the time actually, an F1 Silkie will have dark skin.. From my experience- most F1 Silkies will have 5 toes on one foot, and 4 on the other-- if one parent has each.
ALL Silkies are supposed to have black skin and 5 toes, but in hatchery stock, that rule is too often ignored. With that in mind, crossing away from Silkies should also give you all slightly dark skinned birds. Their skin should be on the blue or greenish side, and the flesh a blue to greenish color. But again, some don't end up that way. Depends on the quality of the parent.
Actually,.. not so much the quality as defined by silkie breeder, enthusiasts, or APA/ABA standards. I have butchered many a silkie (cockerels mostly) and find that skin color is NOT always a good indicator of flesh/bone pigment. I have four wishbones from four silkie cockerels (two blacks, two whites, blacks had some color leakage in the hackle and whites were just not typey enough) dyring in the kitchen and only two of the four are black. All four had black skin, dark combs. The meat ranges in depth of color. Just my personal experience. I've probably butchered (all the way,.. not just cull,.. I mean clean and cook and eat) around 50 silkies,.. so not a huge sample size but not someone who has butchered a couple birds. None were hatchery stock, some were culls from quite nice birds I've won with.
