Hi! I hatched some silkie chicks this summer with six toes. The parents are full silkies with five toes. One of the chicks had five toes on one foot and 6 on the other while another one had 6 on both feet. And still another only had four toes. I was wondering if this could mean that their parents are not full silkies. Or if their could be inbreading. The fifth toe splits at the end with two toe nails...that is what I am calling the 6th toe.
~chikiechik~

Chikiechik, All of our chickens have been mixed at one time or another since the first domestic chickens--a pretty long time ago. And sometimes after sorting out a breed-or developing a new breed, those "hidden" genes pop up and show us something we didn't expect. While the parents of y our birds may have been what could be considered "purebred" Silkies, back another generation, or more, other traits were there. And since lots of these things like numbers of toes, color of skin, comb design etc. are in the background, they, when birds related are bred together, will appear more often. If you were interested in raising Silkies for Show or breeding for Show, they would not be suitable. But for loving pets, they are just fine, so love them as they are!! CJR

Thanks for your answer. I only have my silkies as cute, cuddly pets. I was just curious as to why their toes turned out that way.
If related chickens cause these toes, are there any harmful defects that could occur if I bred these birds and their children again. I love having there babies, but I wouldn't want to have any deformed chicks.
~chikiechik~

You may have some unusual Silkies. Silkies normally have the Po (incompletely dominant polydactyl) allele, but there is another allele that usually results in 6 toes instead of 5 by spliting the extra toe. This allele is called Po^d. A mutation may have occurred in the ancestors of your line of Silkies that changed the normal Po allele to Pod. It could also be variable expression due to unknown modifier genes segregating in your line, but an allele is known that results in 6 toes.

They might not be show birds, but they are special. Most Silkies would not have this allele.

Thanx for the info. Thats neat to know!
I don't know who the grandparents of these birds are, but it startled me when they turned out with six toes. And what surprised me even more was that some of them had four toes. Oh well, I guess God knows what he's doing. : )

Oh, I had another question too...the mother of these babies is black and the father is white. I was expecting to get blue silkies. I figured the white and black would make a silver. I guess that sounds kind of dumb, but all I turned out with was white and black. So my question is...to get different colors of silkies, do you have to start out with that color, or can you mix colors of their parents? Also...when the father (who is white) was a chick he was completely gray, would this have any effect on the color of his chicks?

Thanx n advance!
~chikiechik~

Add another humble silkie owner that would gain from answers to Chickiechic's questions!

The dominant Po allele is incompletely penetrant. Even though the birds have the dominant gene to have 5 toes sometimes they do not express the gene. Most of the time they have 5 toes on at least one leg, but sometimes they look normal.

The gray downed male probably had recessive white. You can get fully colored birds by crossing to him. If you got some white chicks, your black Silkies are probably segregating for recessive white. A lot of color genes can hide under the white (they aren't expressed because the feathers have no pigment) so it depends on what you cross a recessive white Silkie to. Sometimes you can get partridge birds out, but most of the time you get black. You can have buff and columbian segregating under the white. Your white male could have had blue, but it sounds like he did not. Many white lines have blue to help clean up the white.

You can only be guaranteed to get blue chicks if you cross a splash white (BlBl) to a black (bl+bl+). Splash whites have gray patches or ticks of blue or black in their plumage, and you can confuse them with dominant white hybrids sometimes.

Although I don't fully understand some of your "scientific" language, you have been very helpful. Thankyou!
~chikiechik~

I can see I'm going to have to get a notebook and start writing down these color combinations and abbreviations. Rokimoto, can you suggest a book to help a novice in genetics understand all this?