The Splash Silkie
What is a splash Silkie?
Splash Silkie chickens have pale blue plumage with irregular patches of black or dark blue colour.
Splash is the most recent addition to the APA Standard, added in 2000.
What is the difference between splash and paint?
A splash Silkie has a blue base, which is a corrupt black gene whereas paint Silkies are half black over dominant white genes.
Below: This is a paint Silkie. White, with the odd black feather. Splash is darker overall with bigger patches.
Blue and paint are not compatible colours and will mess completely if bred together.
Blues carry one copy of the gene (Bl/bl+) and splash carry two (Bl/Bl) and the actual colour you get can be quite inconsistent and variable, anything from almost white to almost black.
How to breed Splash Silkies:
To get a splash Silkie you need two copies of the blue gene (Bl/Bl) and you will need to breed a splash to a blue or a blue to a blue.
Here is how Splash Silkie breeding works:
- Splash x splash = 100% splash.
- Black x black = 100% black.
- Black x blue = 50% blue 50% black.
- Black x splash = 100% blue.
- Blue x blue = 25% black 50% blue 25% splash.
- Blue x splash = 25% blue 75% splash.
It will work better with a blue cockerel but you can still get results with a black male, but it will take at least two generations.
If you breed a black Silkie cockerel to your blue pullet then you will get 50% black chicks and 50% blue chicks.