We have a blue and buff rooster that is a silkie/sexlink cross. He has white skin, 4 toes, light leg feathering, small cheek muffs and normal feathering. His daddy was a silkie and mom was the sexlink. He is in a pen with our ameracauna hens, sexlinks and some silkie/sexlink cross hens. We just hatched 5 chicks from this pen (2 ameracauan and 3 from brown eggs) and all 5 chicks appear to be getting silkie feathering. Also 3 of the 5 appear to be blue, 3 have leg feathering and it looks like 4 (maybe all 5) have cheek muffs. Will all his offspring have silkie feathering? Will I continue to get mostly blue chicks? And last but not least, are all his chicks going to have muffs? He sure made some cute babies but I was hoping for normal feathering. Thanks for any help. Mina

Hi Mina, I hatched chicks in November. The father of all eight is a Sultan. Three of the babies have a white silkie for their mother. Those three all have normal feathering. Regular feathers must be dominant, but I'm not sure about that.

The 'silkie' gene, h, which causes the silkie-type feathering is a recessive gene. The gene that causes the dark skin of silkies, fibromelanosis, Fm, is dominant. The beardmuff of Ameraucana, Mb, is dominant (incompletely dominant).

So, a cross between a silkie heterozygote (a silkie / non-silkie mutt like your rooster) with a normal feathering female should give all babies with normal feathering because no chick could possibly have more than one (recessive) silkie gene. So, if your chicks are getting silkie feathering, you must be mistaken about the parentage.

Beardmuff is dominant (most of the time) so in order to know how many chicks are going to be bearded, you need to know if your rooster is homozygous (two beardmuff genes) or heterozygous (one beardmuff gene). If he is heterozygous for beardmuff, which sounds likely from your post, half the chicks from a mating of him to non-muffed will be muffed and half won't be. If he is homozygous for beardmuff, then all the babies will have muffs. But, if you hatch only small numbers of chicks (2 or 3 or so), this is a too small number for the correct statistics to be seen. You might hatch two chicks and they might both be muffed or not. But, if you hatch a large enough number, you will get the 50/50 distribution.

Leg-feathering as most fanciers think of it is a polygenic trait. There is more than one leg-feathering gene, and the amount of leg-feathing increases with the number of leg-feathering genes they have. There are dominant and recessive leg-feathering genes.

Thanks for the information. Its all for nothing since a pack of dogs broke into the pens and houses and slaughtered everyone except some mangled ducks and a couple of mangled chickens. Guess it doesn't much matter since the roo and his females are all dead but I do appreciate your trying to answer.

Mina, so sorry to hear you lost so many birds! :..^(
Do you know who these dogs belong too? I would be taking the bodies and stomping up to some doors and doing alot of screaming in somebodys face. Ok, maybe not screaming, but they would definetely hear me roar. What a bummer....I'd be so mad...

Melinda, I can weep for your loss! It is so devastating. Clean up quickly, and through the tears, get things ready for a reenforced pen and house. It is better to have a few new birds safely housed, than to look at the empty site of tragedy! (the dog owners should pay for a good replacement flock!--AND new fencing)!
I cannot even think of the day (maybe sooner than I think) when I won't have a horse in the pasture (2 very old mares there now), and at least a rooster to crow and a couple of hens! It masks the raccoon, hawk and dog kills of long ago!! Am so sorry! CJR

I am so sorry, Mina...

I really cant believe all the dog problems arond the country! It really boils me. Also, it boils down to a people problem. WE lost ALL our birds twice, all the rabbits once and when they came for the sheep Mr. Ruger and Mr. Winchester put an end to that. One thing I learned when I collect for dog damage, the slob dog owners will pay you a couple bucks foe your animals and do nothing about containing their dogs: until you realize a dead bird is worth a lot more than a live one. You may never see the money but give them a big bill and the dog problem eases.

HannahH,
I'd like to hear how the sultan/barred cochins and the sultan/silkies are developing. What colors did you get with the white sultan/white silkie chicks? Do you mind giving a description of each?

Hi! Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, been real busy here lately.

The Sultan/Barred Cochin mixes are mostly white like their proud (and very mean!) papa. Most of them have the single comb of the cochin mom, and a bit of crest behind that. Surprisingly a few have what looks a little like tufts on the sides of their faces. All have the feathered feet and vulture hocks. Most of the mixes are almost all white and have a very light gray splash (diminishing as they age) here and there.

The Sultan/white Silkie look more like the Sultan than the silkie mom. Like Info said, they have normal feathering, decent crests, very blue feet with white beaks (like a Sultan is supposed to) and nice vulture hocks and feathered feet. BUT, they have the weird broad small comb of the Silkie. The Sultans should have a V comb in the males. The females I had/have have virtually no comb. I will post a pic (hopefully today) of the babies so you can see for yourself.

Thanks for asking, and I have 3 pure Sultan eggs now and waiting for more. Hopefully one of the Silkies will decide to sit for me in the next two weeks!

This is from about 2 weeks ago. The ones with crests are really looking better now. These are Sultan/Barred Cochin and Sultan/Silkie crosses. They are about 9 weeks old here.

Sorry about the picture being a bit blurred here and there. All eight of the chicks are here, but half were moving. You can see the silkie mom there, the biggest one on the left.

Totally cool! I get an answer and a photo! The chicks look spectacular. You must be taking great care of them. It appears that the silkie/sultan crosses are all white. Did any of them come out with black skin or turquoise earlobes? Did everybody get 5 toes? Thanks

Hey Unca Buddy! Yes, the chicks are all almost totally white now except for one. The Sultan/Silkie crosses (2 of them) are totally white. Their earlobes haven't started changing yet, so I don't know for sure about those. The Sultan/Silkie crosses of course have 5 toes since Sultans and Silkies both have 5 toes anyway. The Cochin crosses are half and half, some have 5 toes and some have 4. I'll try to get out this week end and write it all down and post it on a new thread for you this week-end. I'll try to get some better pics of the chicks for you too.

HannahH,just curious; how's it going with your "chicks"? I've hatched out a few more: 3- 3/4 silkies 1/4 frizzle and one 3/4 silkie 1/4 Ameraucana. I'm waiting to see how they turn out.