Silkie question

I have a bearded roo but non bearded pullets if crossing them should I get a mix of bearded and non or is one more dominant trait?

Hmmm....I believe in the Ams the bearding is incompletely dominant. I think you will get both. When I crossed a bearded bird with a non bearded breed I got all beards in the first hatch.

I found this:

If you breed bearded to bearded= 100% bearded
If you breed nonbearded to nonbearded= 100% nonbearded
If you breed nonbearded to bearded I usally get 75% bearded since it is more dominant and 25% nonbearded.

If you breed one of each together yes u will get babies who are bearded and nonbeaded from same parents.

So then if I only kept the bearded babies and bred them bearded would I eventually have mainly bearded babies with the odd throw back? This genetics thing is hard to wrap my mind around! LOL

Thanks for the help on this

smokyriver wrote:So then if I only kept the bearded babies and bred them bearded would I eventually have mainly bearded babies

Yes

smokyriver wrote:So then if I only kept the bearded babies and bred them bearded would I eventually have mainly bearded babies with the odd throw back? This genetics thing is hard to wrap my mind around! LOL

I think so. I also found info about the beards being smaller in the crosses, but eventually you would get back your size with careful selection.

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It depends on what alleles your bearded silkie carries smokyriver.

Individuals carry 2 alleles for each trait.
Your non bearded silke will carry two alleles for non bearded (mb/mb)
Your bearded silkie could carry two alleles for a beard (Mb/Mb) or only one (Mb/mb).

If your bearded silkie has a really nice big full beard and muffs and small wattles you will most likely you will get 100% bearded babies (with slightly smaller beards and larger wattles).
If your bearded silkie has a smaller beard and larger wattles you will most likely get about 50% unbearded chicks and 50% bearded (but small beards and larger wattles).

The info Tara provided explains why that will be the case.

The only way to know for sure is to hatch some...

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My roo has very little wattles so hopefully we get lots of bearded babies. I am planning to hatch some and see what I get. My roo is white well actually green right now due to a bedazzling event and the pullets are black so hoping to maybe get some blue bearded babies but bearded of any color would make me happy. I love the bearded silkies but find silkies so hard to find period much less asking specifically for bearded!!