The Cuckoo Silkies in my backyard
by the Cuckoo Stud

Firstly it needs to be noted here that Silkies have Mulberry skin/combs/wattles (as mentioned in the OZ APS) not black, 
only the Cuckoo Silkie exhibits other than mulberry as the Cuckoo gene effects the skin beak and leg colour causing a mottling effect

Growing up with Cuckoo Orpingtons and having been involved in breeding them my entire life, I suppose I was ‘virtually’ brainwashed from birth to love this colour pattern above all else.

After owning a few White Silkies for some years, my son asked if he could have one as a pet and finally I relented and gave him a lovely pullet. 

This pullet followed my son everywhere and when he could he would sneak her into his room at night and she would sleep in a box he kept there for her.

At some point I started to wonder if there was a Cuckoo Silkie and found that there were none in OZ.
So I started thinking about how to go about it

That pet Silkie went on to become the founding ‘grandmother’ of the Cuckoo Silkie here.

I started by locating a Silkie that had a faint barring pattern (the dear old soul said “He is the sweetest thing, but darling Council won’t let me keep him because he’s a boy! He was supposed to grow up to be a girl!” – needless to say this dear soul did get that girl she so wanted – I made certain of that {one of his young}.) It is to be noted that barring is present in many breeds

The first mating produced some very strange young indeed but gave me immense hope as 12 of them appeared to have Cuckooish feathering
I bred these brothers/sisters together imagining the worst genetically, but producing a mixture of Black – White - Barred (sort of) and Cuckoo (sort of). I was initially devastated to discover that a number of them had red wattles/combs. But some that had the Barred or Cuckoo markings had either dark wattles/combs with reddish ‘mottles’ of colour or were red with dark ‘mottles’.  
Being determined I just kept right on going, as I was aware of this ‘mottling’ from my Cuckoo Orpingtons. 
The Cuckoo gene causes this mottling, so the initial disappointment quickly faded after I consulted with Lance Hicks, a borderline genius regards poultry genetics. Lance confirmed that the Cuckoo genetics was dominant over all skin colours, the mulberry inclusive

I was extremely frustrated as I wanted the Cuckoo yesterday so to speak.

My young daughter had asked for Pekins for her birthday only a few days after these young ones feathers/patterns started to emerge clearly. So off we go again in search this time of Pekins - much to my suprise she chose a lovely trio of two Black and one Cuckoo. Well now that got me thinking again didn’t it!

That Cuckoo Pekin boy was – dare I say – the randiest thing I’ve ever seen. And being an escape artist he got into one pen of Silkies one day. Well I figured “At least he’s Cuckoo” so I set all the eggs as normal. What hatched was no suprise at all. All eggs were marked for 21 days after the escapee incident, so I knew which young were his and which ones were the Barred boys (I did not keep the first seven days eggs to ensure no cross over of fertilisation, then kept all to day 21, all from day 14 of collection onwards were clear ensuring parentage) - they looked like perfect Silkies – perfect Cuckoo but with reddish wattles/combs and pleasingly, true to the Silkie shape, so there was hope. About half had mulberry with dark mottled skin under their feathers, the rest had white with mottled skin, and all the young no matter the mating had the correct number of toes (this followed through the entire time giving me great hope)

I decided to keep everything that was the closest to Silkie Cuckoo regardless of who the dad might be. I did however ‘up the security’ on the Pekin pen, and decided to use two lines – one using the Barred male and one using this randy Pekin.
I continued to keep accurate and detailed records, using microchips as identification.

So now I had two experimental lines to work with. I put the most Silkie/Cuckoo looking girls from the Barred with this Pekin and that produced promising results for the Cuckoo pattern. I then put them back to their father (the barred), wanting to retain the Silkie feathering as much as I could.

I discovered that putting these almost Silkie Cuckoo girls to this Pekin destroyed the Silkie feathering (of course) – but thought maybe if I breed the fluffiest and closest to Silkie looking brother/sister I might just get something I could use.

I chose 9 brother/sister combos and they produced over 300 young to choose from.

I selected every Cuckooish Silkieish looking young there and decided to put them back into the Barred line.

The Barred line had produced almost as many young – they were either Black or looked to varying degrees like what I envisioned Cuckoo Silkie to be.

So I had more than enough birds to go on with and started selecting the pairs/trios.

The first hatch of young from these pairs/trios were as expected – a mixture of Silkie and flat feathers – a mixture of mulberry/mottled combs/wattles – a mixture of true Cuckoo/Black colouring.

All the incorrect feathers/colour were removed from the experiment.

I only kept 4 Blacks (I liked the look of them and they were from the Silkie side only). New pairs and trios were formed.

The hatchlings from these newly selected birds were extremely promising. I found however that the young/lines originating from that Barred male’s line were much better birds all round – I decided to put the best offspring from the second hatching back to him.

The third hatching – all back to this barred male were EXACTLY what I wanted – they had the correct feathering/colour pattern also the wattle/comb and skin colour were either the correct Silkie mulberry skin or a mulberry with darker mottle, also each bird had as always the correct number of toes.

I was very unimpressed with the birds/lines originating from that randy Pekin – they were too unpredictable so they were dropped out of my experiment and I only kept 2 pairs and a trio from it. (Just in case – but not breeding young from them waiting to see if they would be needed, they were not) I deleted out all birds that originated from the Pekin

The 4th hatching of what I was now calling Cuckoo Silkie was 100% looking Cuckoo Silkie – so I decided that Hatch 5 would have one line with one of those Black Silkies (from the Barred line) I’d kept put into it to see what would happen and see if it upped the depth of the Cuckoo colour

Hatch 5 = Cuckoo/Cuckoo = Cuckoo - - - Cuckoo/Black = 50/50 but all Silkie shaped/feathered – exhibiting either the mulberry skin/combs/wattles or mulberry with darker mottling, or white skin with dark mottles with combs/wattles red with dark mottles and all still with the correct number of toes

Hatch 6 were a mix of Cuckoo/Black = 100% Cuckoo suprisingly

Hatch 7 were almost all killed by extreme cold and flash flooding while we were away shopping one day – coming home to your entire back yard under water and birds floating dead everywhere is not my idea of fun. Only three young from Hatch 7 survived that storm front. Fortunately all but one adult bird survived

Hatch 7 revisited produced 100% Cuckoo – and so I have have been breeding 'true’ Cuckoo Silkies since then – with all displaying either the mulberry with dark mottled skin/comb/wattles, or white with dark mottled skin with red and dark mottled combs/wattles, as per the true Cuckoo gene when exhibited in a Silkie and only the random all red comb/wattles coming through.

I ended up rehousing the birds originating from the randy Pekin’s lines – as I had more than enough Cuckoo Silkie pairs/trios and even one quad (that included an amazing Black) originating from that Barred boy to continue on with.

It became public knowledge, once they were 'almost finished', that I had been developing this colour in the Silkie and many have seen the birds since Hatch 7. The first outside the family being a dear friend I fondly refer to as 'Irish'.

So – all because I am obsessed with this Cuckoo feather pattern there are Cuckoo Silkies in Oz – in my back yard.



# 2011 update insert - two cockerels and one pullet were debuted at the VIC Rare and New Breeds Club Annual Show, to good     reviews, some highly critical comments as to their mottled skin/combs/wattles (from those that do not know / understand               Cuckoo genetics) and many words of praise for effort put into them.


# 2013 update insert - 90% of the seasons offspring have mulberry mottled skin/combs/wattles, 
                                        the remaining 10% are white or red skinned with mottling.

# 2015 update = birds released to the public

# 2016 update = both birds and eggs have been released



#  subject to copyright laws of Australia