Showgirl/Silkie naked neck gene

[Crazy Chicken Fever]

I have a beautful pair of Showgirls and some really nice silkies. My question is....When I breed my showgirl pair I get 100% naked neck. If I breed my showgirl roo or hen to a reg silkie what will I get? What percentage will get the naked neck gene, if any.. or all?

I am going to be working on a couple projects with the showgirls this summer but, I need to understand the genetics first.

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[Kev]

Naked neck is semi dominant, which means it will show up in chicks from a cross of naked neck with not naked neck. So, showgirl x silkie will produce naked necks(showgirls in this case).

How many chicks are naked necked depends on if the naked neck parent is pure or not pure for it.

If it is pure for NN(naked neck) then this bird crossed with silkie will produce 100% showgirls.

If it is not pure for NN then this bird crossed with silkie will produce 50% showgirl, 50% silkie.

In any case, you are definitely going to get at least half showgirl chicks.

As for showgirl x showgirl throwing all showgirls, this is still somewhat vague as we don't know how many chicks were produced so far and it could be one showgirl parent is pure for NN but the other(s) are not.

Not pure NN x not pure NN will throw 75% NN chicks.. so if only 10 chicks were hatched, it could be by pure chance that all 10 were NN. But if you hatch 20 or more, the chances of a not NN showing up is much stronger.

Pure NN x not pure NN will throw 100% NN chicks.

Naked neck being semi dominant also means very often there is a visual difference between a bird pure for NN and one not pure for it- the most visible one being a difference in the bowtie size- pure NN have a very small/tiny bowtie and not pure have a much larger bowtie with many feathers and covers more of the lower front of neck. However silkies also can have pea comb(true walnut is genetically pea comb combined with rose comb).. pea comb has a side effect of reducing the overall number of feathers on a bird. This can become really obvious on a naked necked bird.. a not pure NN with peacomb can have a very small bowtie and a bird pure for NN with peacomb can be "very naked" and have a totally bare neck among other things. Perhaps you will be able to tell by looking at your showgirl pair- if they have completely bare necks or a medium sized bowtie...

 

[Crazy Chicken Fever]

Thanks so much! You just helped me out a ton! The showgirls I have now have a small bowtie. Now if I cross a partridge showgirl with a black silkie, any idea of what color I will get?

 

[Kev]

For color, simplest to assume all blacks but a lot of them will show off color areas when adult, especially the males but the females will have the genes for off color, even if they are apparently solid black. Black roosters with brown or white on necks etc(not much a problem if showgirl, lol..). Glad to help!