Silver Outcross

[Lee G]

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to share a few pictures of my silver outcross birds now that I’ve made my final cut. My main goals for 2016 are to continue to work on size, as well as heads, feet and tail sets. And to make myself some blue silvers to play with! 

Because I'm a firm believer 'you can only know where you’ve going if you know when you’ve been' a little history first. in 2014 I bred a silver cock to a splash hen, and a black hen (both E/E, s+/s+) resulting in two keeper daughters, a black pullet from the black hen, and a blue pullet from the splash (both E/e+, S/S). In 2015 I bred a different silver cock over the F1 pullets, and some of the resulting offspring are pictured below.

F2’s at hatch, with not quite right chick phenotype for silver Ameraucanas


Something I thought was neat is how these chicks appear to be sexable. Cockerel on top with thicker eyeliner that extends out from the eye, and pullet on bottom with thinner eyeliner that doesn’t extend as far - will be interesting to see if this applies to pure silvers as well. (Thinking not, or I would have noticed before...but maybe not? )


F2 silver pullet with too many black enhancers, and what I suspect to be only one copy of mb?






Even so, I’m very pleased with her refined looking head. Good skull width too. She’s also quite stocky, with a full, round chest, and well spaced feet. Feather quality is good, and the shafting was to be expected...does anyone have advise on breeding away from it? I’d sure love to hear it! Tail I’m not so keen on, as it looks rather messy. Good thing I have a solution in mind, or rather a certain mate. She only started laying a few days ago at 6.5 months, (was a late summer hatch) but shell quality looks good so far, and colour is a pale, minty blue. (Hers is the one on the right)


Looks like I need to start a new thread for her potential mates, so not to overload this one with pictures.
Questions, comments, advise, are all most welcome.

[Lee G]

F2 splash cockerel split to silver (E/e+, S/S  OR  E/e+, S/+s)
This k is from a different mating using the blue F1 pullet, only mated to a blue male instead. He turned out nice imo, tail included! Nice, tight wings, and feather quality is excellent. I plan to pair them together with a few different goals in mind; namely, learn if he’s really split to gold or not, (fingers crossed he's S/S), hopefully pass on some better tails and size, and give myself a chance at hatching out some blue silvers this year. 




F2 silver cockerel, also heavy on black enhancers, and Mb/mb. well I do like his body shape and depth, that tail isn’t doing him any favours. maybe he’ll grow into it, but somehow I doubt it. His sires tail wasn’t so great either. He is only 6.5 months, so maybe I'm being too hard on him...they can change so much in a few months. Thoughts?







F2 black cockerel split to silver (E/e+, S/S or E/e+ S/+s)
Keeping this k mostly as backup. Too bad it wasn’t possible to trade tails between birds! lol I like this one much better, even though he didn't pose so well for the pictures. Was a balmy -20C day!  just wish there was an easy way to tell if he's spilt to gold or not without test mating...


 

[John W Blehm]

You've got a great start there.   
The melanizers from the black side of the cross may help cover some shafting.  If it does the trick is to breed out the unwanted melanizers while breeding to keep any that reduce shafting.
The cocks/cockerels that are S/S should be pure silver/white, while any that are S/s+ should show some gold.  Then breeding S/S males over any of the females will produce pure S/- daughters.
Your top silver cockerel with the silver/white wing triangle is probably pure for wildtype (e+/e+).
The guy on the bottom with an all black wing may be ER/e+, but with all that silver my guess is he isn't E/e+.

[Lee G]

  Thanks John. That kind of information is very helpful. I never would have suspected the last cockerel may be split to ER, or that I had ER in my flock, until you mentioned it. Sure makes things interesting! So I went back to look over chick pictures, and sure enough there were a few that hatched with jet black down and only a small spot under the chin. The chick on the far right looks to be one. The rest had cream on their chests and bellies to varying degrees.

The cocks/cockerels that are S/S should be pure silver/white, while any that are S/s+ should show some gold.

Is it possible for silver to mask gold in S/+s males though? Or will it always show if there?

[John W Blehm]

The cocks/cockerels that are S/S should be pure silver/white, while any that are S/s+ should show some gold.

Is it possible for silver to mask gold in S/+s males though? Or will it always show if there?

In my experiences silver lets enough gold to show on males, when it is there, to let you know it is.  I took some photos today of a bantam Vorwerk (gold)/Lakenvelder (silver) cross to show you...sorry they aren't photos of Ameraucanas, but these are just for color reference.

[Lee G]

Pictures are great for reference, thank you.
Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference between certain leakage (golden) and sun damage to feathers, especially on my blue and splash males.

Speaking of pictures, I was going back over some older ones of my birds, and came across this F1 cockerel. (I may have posted pics of him before.) Judging by his chick down, and later the lacing showing on his chest, I suspect he was ER/e+ and S/S. Which means his mother was birchen, or at least split at her base. Really wish I would have kept him awhile longer now, dang it




So I'm pretty much convinced now I have ER in my flock. Chicken genetics are so cool! 

[John W Blehm]

That silver wing triangle is the key. 
The order of dominance for the common E locus genes we deal with is E, E^R, e^Wh, e⁺, e^b.  That means if he were E or ER the wing triangle would have been black instead of silver/white.  He was probably e⁺/e⁺.  e^WH and e^b would also show a wing triangle.
That doesn't mean E^R isn't still hiding in some birds, but he would have had more birchen phenotype if he carried it.  The presence or absence of that triangle is the main difference between a silver & birchen.

[Lee G]

Aha, I get it now!  Thank you John for explaining things so clearly. I forgot how important the order of dominance is for e-alleles. and I won't overlook the wing triangle again. The pattern genes cannot lie. The dots are (finally) starting to connect.  Woo! lol

[Suki]

Hi Lee, I am not sure I understand the point of this cross?
Thanks

[Lee G]

Hi Lee, I am not sure I understand the point of this cross?
Thanks

Hi Browneyes,
Sorry I missed your post before…I haven’t been around much online in the past few months due to family health issues.

As to your question, my answer is threefold; to learn, to create, and to enjoy. 

I think this quote is very fitting....

"Breeds are not cut in stone, but rather are fluid, elastic, ever-changing populations upon which we breeders hone our craft." - Daniel Powell

...and I aim to hone my craft. 

[Suki]

In my experiences silver lets enough gold to show on males, when it is there, to let you know it is.  I took some photos today of a bantam Vorwerk (gold)/Lakenvelder (silver) cross to show you

Why did you cross them?

[John W Blehm]

In my experiences silver lets enough gold to show on males, when it is there, to let you know it is.  I took some photos today of a bantam Vorwerk (gold)/Lakenvelder (silver) cross to show you

Why did you cross them?

Because I don't have a bantam Lakenvelder male and I'm making the crosses to produce them.

[Suki]

Oh what a pity.  Good luck with that project.

[John W Blehm]

This year I had two LF silver breeding pens.  One was a cockerel over 5 pullets and the other was an XL cockerel over my largest pullet.  This big guy is 7.8 pounds.  I know he is oversize, but LF silvers have usually been undersize and even though I've seen the type and size improve in the last few years I plan to use his sons over daughters from the pen with a cockerel and 5 pullets next year. 

[Russ Blair]

Wow 7.8 lbs he is a whopper  what he lacks in color he definitely makes up with the size