The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding
Shafting in silvers
Guest:
Thanks for the Pics John. I have some silvers and I absolutely love them. They are a work in progress with the combs on the males and common issues with the female feathering. It helps to be able to compare to something.
Jerry: I noticed the striping difference last year with some hatches I had with the silvers and came to the same conclusion, it does work
The only problem I have observed with the silvers, they don\'t get in a hurry to lay :(
OldChurchEggery:
So, I\'ve read on the forum that crossing silver to black can be advantageous if you\'re trying to improve size, type, eggs, etc. How many generations of crossing back to silver does it take to get back to decent silver coloring? More than three generations? I\'ve seen published somewhere a \"purity chart\" for lack of a better term since I can\'t remember exactly what is was called were F1 is 50% pure, 2nd crossing 75%, 3rd 87.5%, 4th 93.75% and so on. What\'s the breaking point for silver is what I guess I\'m asking.
Mike Gilbert:
Ericka, if you keep breeding back to silver you will eventually lose the advantage of outcrossing to begin with. I believe you would need to raise a lot of the hybrids and hope for a few with the right combination of genetics. It would take a number of generations; I did it with bantams. Most folks are not willing to go to that amount of time and expense.
bantamhill:
I agree with Mike G. The advantage of the cross will be totally lost if you cross back to silver multiple times after the black cross (essentially line breeding back to the orginal silver line). Instead you must mate F1 birds with the best characteristics (type, egg shell color, early lay, fast development) together and select from their offspring for the next generation for silver and the other characteristics. Take advantage of the hybrid vigor and raise a lot of birds and cull heavily. You can easily make several lines (see the wheaten post by Royce) at this point to make sure you have good genetic diversity and do not have to go back to the original silver line. Personally, I would retain the original silver line until I had the new lines established.
Don\'t forget to make sure that you are tracking the egg shell color of the males in every generation. I know, I am a broken record!
As a reminder, if you are crossing for specific characteristics like age of lay, rate of lay, egg shell color, rate of development, make sure the line of black (or other variety depending on what variety you are working with) you are crossing to actually has the characteristics you are looking for. ;)
Michael
grisaboy:
I keep one pen of Birchen females that I breed to a Silver male. I developed these Birchens several years ago by crossing blacks to silver and weaving in some brown reds. The primary purpose was to help get rid of red wings in the males. These birchen females are all split to silver so this pen gives half silver and half birchen offspring. I do not keep the birchen males and the birchen females are selected primarily for type and egg color. Some of my best silver males have come out of this pen.
Curtis
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