Mottled silkies?

[Timbers Happy Hens]

So I’d really love to have some black, blue or chocolate mottled silkies. I don’t want to have eggs shipped and pay out the butt for them, I’d like to breed my own. I’m very understanding that it will take at least 3 generations or more to get the results I’m looking for. What I need to know is what colors are best to start with to get the mottling going.
I currently have a mille fluer Cochin hen, a few calico Cochin hens in dark and light reds, a black satin silkie hen, a grey silkie hen, a buff silkie hen, a chocolate silkie hen and 2 black silkie hens. I also have a paint silkie roo, black silkie roo and calico Cochin roo.
If there’s a color that I need for a better foundation, I have an npip breeder that I buy my silkies and Cochins from I can get ahold of. Please let me know your recommendations!
(Photos are from Pinterest so you can see what I’m shooting for, not my birds!!)

 

[Egg Snatcher]

I’m by no means a genetic expert. Here’s what I can tell you that you’ll need, a bird that carries mottling and a black bird, with either one with the Silkie gene. Which you have both.
Breed the black Silkie roo to your calico hens, or you calico roo to your black Silkie hens. You will get black skinned, smooth black feathered, 5 toes, and blue ear lobes with a possible small beards and small crest on some. These chicks will carry the recessive mottled and Silkie gene.
Breed these guys together to produce, mottled, silkied, 5 toes, blue ear lobes, black skinned and some will have better beards and crest than others.
Continue breeding them together to improve the Silkie body structure, crest, beards and color. It’ll take a lot of work but it’s worth it! Have fun! Oh, and stay away from vulture hocks. These are hard feathers that shoot out from the hocks. Silkies arnt supposed to have them, breeders have added vulture hocks to make the Silkie look more fluffy.
Hope this helps

 

[I Like Turkeys]

The best breeding option, if you’re trying to make this from a silkie/Cochin cross, would be a black, chocolate, or blue silkie(whichever color you prefer) paired To a mottled black, blue or chocolate cochin Bantam. Seeing as you don’t have mottled black Cochins, the next best bet would be your calico Cochin hens paired to a black silkie rooster. The issue this presents is the eb or ewh genes the calicos will bring in, which you’ll have to select away from. It’ll wind you up with leaky black birds, and incomplete melanization. This is fixable by breeding back to your black silkies, and selecting those with the least leakage, down to having none.

Most silkie traits, except silkied feathering and leg color, will dominate over the Cochin traits. Mottling is recessive though. Mottling is also known to decrease the fibromelanistic expression silkies have, just a heads up.
Breeding f1 to f1 is a good idea, so you can get mottled black chicks(hopefully with a majority of the silkie traits) in an f2 bird, but once you have that achieved, you could either continue breeding f2s, or backcross to your silkie again. Backcrossing would help cement the silkie traits, but you’d be back down to mottled splits. Breeding f2 to f2 would help retain the mottling in a single generation or so, but it’d be more work and breeding to cement those silkie traits in again.

I agree with @Egg Snatcher ‘s statement, overall.

Vulture Hocks tend to be associated with the high level of leg feathering Cochins and silkies have though, I’ve heard the key is to select for enough fluff that the vulture hocks disappear. Also don’t breed birds with rigid ones.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

The best breeding option, if you’re trying to make this from a silkie/Cochin cross, would be a black, chocolate, or blue silkie(whichever color you prefer) paired To a mottled black, blue or chocolate cochin Bantam. Seeing as you don’t have mottled black Cochins, the next best bet would be your calico Cochin hens paired to a black silkie rooster. The issue this presents is the eb or ewh genes the calicos will bring in, which you’ll have to select away from. It’ll wind you up with leaky black birds, and incomplete melanization. This is fixable by breeding back to your black silkies, and selecting those with the least leakage, down to having none.

Most silkie traits, except silkied feathering and leg color, will dominate over the Cochin traits. Mottling is recessive though. Mottling is also known to decrease the fibromelanistic expression silkies have, just a heads up.
Breeding f1 to f1 is a good idea, so you can get mottled black chicks(hopefully with a majority of the silkie traits) in an f2 bird, but once you have that achieved, you could either continue breeding f2s, or backcross to your silkie again. Backcrossing would help cement the silkie traits, but you’d be back down to mottled splits. Breeding f2 to f2 would help retain the mottling in a single generation or so, but it’d be more work and breeding to cement those silkie traits in again.

I agree with @Egg Snatcher ‘s statement, overall.

Vulture Hocks tend to be associated with the high level of leg feathering Cochins and silkies have though, I’ve heard the key is to select for enough fluff that the vulture hocks disappear. Also don’t breed birds with rigid ones.

Thanks I Like Turkeys, I forgot about the leakage part.

This is a little off topic and probably a stupid question , but if a Silkie has vulture hocks and you want to get rid of them is there anyway to get rid of vulture hock is you only have vulture hocked silkies.

 

[I Like Turkeys]

Thanks I Like Turkeys, I forgot about the leakage part.

This is a little off topic and probably a stupid question , but if a Silkie has vulture hocks and you want to get rid of them is there anyway to get rid of vulture hock is you only have vulture hocked silkies.

In a line where the vulture hocks are obvious, it’d probably be best to just outcross To a line without the issue. Otherwise, hatch a bunch(like every egg you get), and cull hard, and you can begin trying to improve the line. Some things take a lot of breeding and a lot of selection to change.

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

Thank you for all your replies! This was so helpful in narrowing down what I need to do. Which combo do you think would be best to start with? The silkie roo to the calico hens or the calico roo to my black silkies? The silkie roo has a ton of gold leakage, so much that when I saw him I thought he might be partridge. I’m not sure how this would effect the crosses?
if anyone is interested in this project I’ll continue to post updates!

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

The issue this presents is the eb or ewh genes the calicos will bring in

Can you explain what the eb and ewh genes are exactly? I’ve never heard the term before.

 

[I Like Turkeys]

Can you explain what the eb and ewh genes are exactly? I’ve never heard the term before.

base Color genes, essentially. There’s 5 that really matter, with others That function the same as these main ones, kinda.
e+: wild type
eb: brown
eWh: wheaten
ER: birchen
E: extended black

ER and E are what make black birds. They make a black base, with potential natural leakage. ER leaks more. Extra melanization genes are necessary for making a bird solid black.
I believe brown red OEGB are ER.

Black ameraucanas tend to be on E. Some from blue lines can be ER, but the best are based on E.


Those melanization genes don’t work the same on e+, eb, and eWh though. Those are the Duckwing alleles, making lighter brown, gold, or cream colored hens, with Duckwing patterned roosters. Adding in melanization genes will add black, but never enough to fully darken the bird. Thats how furness Cochins and brassy back RoseCombs happen, brassy back based on e+ and furness I heard is based on eWh. Neither of these are my photos.

Introducing these genes into a line of black birds spurs leakage because the genes naturally don’t fully darken the bird, and often times birds of those alleles do not have the melanization genes necessary for a solid black bird, so you loose that, and have to select again for full darkness. I said eWh or eb because those seem to be the genes calico Cochins and Millie Fleurs are based on. eWh is more common for calicos, but a good Millie Fleur should be based on eb. Neither gene is exactly proper to introduce when you’re trying to go for a solid black based bird though.

 

[GirlsHuntToo]

So I’d really love to have some black, blue or chocolate mottled silkies. I don’t want to have eggs shipped and pay out the butt for them, I’d like to breed my own. I’m very understanding that it will take at least 3 generations or more to get the results I’m looking for. What I need to know is what colors are best to start with to get the mottling going.
I currently have a mille fluer Cochin hen, a few calico Cochin hens in dark and light reds, a black satin silkie hen, a grey silkie hen, a buff silkie hen, a chocolate silkie hen and 2 black silkie hens. I also have a paint silkie roo, black silkie roo and calico Cochin roo.
If there’s a color that I need for a better foundation, I have an npip breeder that I buy my silkies and Cochins from I can get ahold of. Please let me know your recommendations!
(Photos are from Pinterest so you can see what I’m shooting for, not my birds!!)

Wow that is one beautiful chicken!! I don't know very much about breeding and stuff like that but hopefully someone can give you the answers you are looking for!

 

[Timbers Happy Hens]

base Color genes, essentially. There’s 5 that really matter, with others That function the same as these main ones, kinda.
e+: wild type
eb: brown
eWh: wheaten
ER: birchen
E: extended black

ER and E are what make black birds. They make a black base, with potential natural leakage. ER leaks more. Extra melanization genes are necessary for making a bird solid black.
I believe brown red OEGB are ER.
View attachment 3695941
View attachment 3695943
Black ameraucanas tend to be on E. Some from blue lines can be ER, but the best are based on E.


Those melanization genes don’t work the same on e+, eb, and eWh though. Those are the Duckwing alleles, making lighter brown, gold, or cream colored hens, with Duckwing patterned roosters. Adding in melanization genes will add black, but never enough to fully darken the bird. Thats how furness Cochins and brassy back RoseCombs happen, brassy back based on e+ and furness I heard is based on eWh. Neither of these are my photos.View attachment 3695944View attachment 3695945

Introducing these genes into a line of black birds spurs leakage because the genes naturally don’t fully darken the bird, and often times birds of those alleles do not have the melanization genes necessary for a solid black bird, so you loose that, and have to select again for full darkness. I said eWh or eb because those seem to be the genes calico Cochins and Millie Fleurs are based on. eWh is more common for calicos, but a good Millie Fleur should be based on eb. Neither gene is exactly proper to introduce when you’re trying to go for a solid black based bird though.

Thank you this was incredibly detailed and helpful!