Breeding Silvers, Red Leakage in Males

[Steve Neumann]

I am curious to hear from longtime breeders of Silvers when you get cockerels that show some red feathers in their young juvenile state, do you cull them or do you let them feather out?  I noticed from my first batch of chicks that one of these males had this as young juvenile, but that it was gradually covered up and was not visible in the adult bird.  Is there correlation between these red feathers and the salmon in the chests of the females or does their presence give a dinginess to the silver males?  Or both?  Does anybody maintain separate male and female lines of Silvers where they use these males with red to produce good colored females, but use only pale chested females to produce bright silver males?

[John W Blehm]

I've always culled them, so I can't say for sure that they wouldn't mature without showing red.  Day-old chick down can be drastically different in both color and pattern than mature feather color/pattern and with each molt juvenile birds get closer to their mature colors/pattern, but once they start feathering I believe the mature colors are showing up already even though the pattern may have a long way to go.
I don't double mate any of the varieties I breed and don't believe there is any correlation between salmon breasts of silver (wildtype) females and the red in males that you are referring to.  Often the red in the shoulders of silver males is attributed to "autosomal red", but with some folks that can be a broad brush term about an unwanted red that we don't know enough about.  It is easily bred into a flock and can be difficult to breed out, since the females may carry it without showing it.  Test mating is something I haven't taken the time and space to do.
In the past I've bred both LF and bantam silver Ameraucana lines that didn't have the problem (Jerry Segler and tell you), but with recent outcrosses to make other improvements I've seen it pop up.

[Steve Neumann]

Thanks, John.  That's the information I was looking for.  Did the red start showing up after the Buff outcrosses, or was it before that? 

[John W Blehm]

Thanks, John.  That's the information I was looking for.  Did the red start showing up after the Buff outcrosses, or was it before that?

I'm not sure when or after what outcross. 
I also don't know that autosomal red has any relationship to silver (S) or gold (s+).  Maybe it could be in a silver based black (E), but just not be able to express or show thru as it does on a wildtype (e+) bird.  This is one of those areas where there are many theories and not much known for sure.
The Clarification of Autosomal Red thread on The Classroom @ The Coop forum has more.

[Suki]

I maintain two lines...one for boys and the other for hens.  I do this as many of the cock lines do not have salmon in the breast, so I save those that do for the girls lines.  I have learnt over 3 years that the Silver Boys are robuster i.e. hens and cocks.  This has been problematic.  OTOH, I finally have a very tame set that fly to hand when called.  It's been slow.