Silver spangled appenzeller spitzhauben / Indio gigante cross

[ChaosKrab93]

So I’m up for a bit of a project and I just wanted to get a feel for how realistic my goals are and if anyone has suggestion on the best way to go about this. This will be my first breeding project and I’m very new to the genetics of chickens so be gentle with me.
I want to get a bird with the size and stance of an Indio, but the coloring of the appenzeller spitzhauben (and the crest if I can). Understanding that this would probably take some serious work (if it works at all) what would be the best place to start?

 

[NatJ]

Understanding that this would probably take some serious work (if it works at all) what would be the best place to start?

The most obvious starting point is to cross the two, then interbreed the offspring with each other and with the two parent types.

It would probably be good to make the initial cross both directions (Indio rooster x Spitzhauben hen, and Spitzhauben rooster x Indio hen). And then you can interbreed chicks from each cross with each other, and with chicks from the other cross, and with each parent breed in each sex.

Depending on what you see, you can make decisions about how to proceed next.

Crest is caused by a dominant gene. If you breed two birds with no crest, none of their chicks will have crests. So if you reach a point when none of your project birds have crests, you will never see crests again, unless you re-introduce them.

Silver is dominant over gold. If you breed two gold birds (recessive trait), all their chicks will have gold and none will have silver. Like crest, if you lose the Silver, you will have to re-introduce it. Silver birds might carry gold, and crested birds might carry not-crest, but gold and uncrested will breed true for those traits.

There will be plenty of other dominant and recessive genes in the project, but those are the first two that spring to mind right now.