Understanding Silver: A Powerful Trait in Poultry Breeding

When it comes to poultry genetics, some traits are flashy and obvious, while others quietly unlock entire breeding strategies. Silver is one of those quiet powerhouses with potential to completely change your breeding game if you know how to use it. Silver in chickens is a single gene that not only changes how a bird looks, but also plays a key role in certain breeding programs. If you’ve ever admired the crisp white-and-black look of a Silver Laced Wyandotte or wondered why some chicks can be sexed at hatch just by color, you’ve already seen silver in action!

What Is Silver in Chickens?

In chicken genetics, Silver is represented by the symbol S. This gene replaces gold pigment in the feathers with a pale silver or white tone, while leaving black, blue, or white areas untouched.

• A bird with one copy (S/s⁺) will display silver.
• A bird with two copies (S/S) is homozygous for silver, meaning all offspring will inherit silver if bred to gold-free birds.
• Because silver is dominant, it shows even when only one parent passes it on.

Think of silver as a filter — it removes gold and all its iterations such as brown, tan and beige —  but doesn’t change anything else. This makes it especially useful when you want a cleaner, cooler-toned pattern without warm gold tones showing through. A homozygous (S/S) silver bird won’t have any gold or brown or leakage of any kind. A heterozygous (S/s⁺) silver bird will also appear silver since even one S gene will suppress the gold (s⁺) gene, but it’s very possible they will have some leakage.

An important thing to note here is that extended black will cover both silver and gold. Given the fact that silver in chickens is much less common that gold, most solid black chicken breeds are actually “gold” based. But more on that topic later!

Why Don’t More Chicken Breeds Have Silver Versions?

You might wonder — if silver is so striking and useful, why don’t we see it more often? There are a few reasons, but the primary one is that like blue eyes in humans, silver is a mutation that occurred down the line over time and even though it’s dominant, it’s rare.

In nature, the gold allele (s⁺) is the default setting for chicken plumage. The silver allele (S) is the result of a mutation that masks gold pigment, leaving white or silvery areas where gold would normally appear. Because it’s a mutation, it isn’t present in all breeds — and unless breeders deliberately introduce and continually select for it, it can easily be lost over generations. This is one reason silver-based breeds are less common than gold-based ones: maintaining S/S in a flock requires purposeful introduction and selection, especially if a breed was originally developed on a gold base.

There are other reasons, of course, including:

1. Historical breeding goals: Many breeds were standardized long before silver was common, and breeders often focused on preserving the original look.
2. Aesthetic preference: Some breeds are famous for deep red or golden tones that silver would completely erase.
3. Show standards: If the Standard of Perfection (SOP) specifies gold for a variety, silver birds won’t be accepted in that category — so show breeders have little reason to add it.

Why Silver is a Chicken Breeder’s Secret Weapon

The silver gene isn’t just about looks — it’s also sex-linked, meaning it sits on the sex chromosome, Z. This opens up a world of breeding possibilities:

• Sex-linking: Because silver is inherited differently by males and females, it can be used to produce chicks that can be visually sexed at hatch.
• Autosexing breeds: In certain patterns, silver combined with traits that can be fixed into a breed like barring or silver duckwing produces male and female chicks that look different right from day one.
• Cleanup tool: Silver can help remove unwanted “gold leakage” from patterned birds where gold feathers pop up where they shouldn’t.

Even if you’re not actively creating a sex-linked project, silver can refine patterns and bring consistency to your flock.

Introducing Silver Into Any Breed of Chickens

If your breed doesn’t have silver, you can add it — but it’s a multi-year process. I’ve created a FREE GUIDE called Introducing Silver Into a Chicken Breed that you can get access to if you sign-up for our newsletter, but here’s a nutshell version of the process we’re following to introduce silver into many of the breeds we’re developing:

1. Cross a gold-based hen to a silver-based rooster (S/S or S/s⁺).
2. Breed back to the silver-based father, or breed siblings together, successively selecting for silver in every subsequent generation.
3. Watch for — and select against — any traits you don’t want that hitchhiked in from the intro breed.

Example: Eight Acres Farm created Silver Duckwing Welsummers by crossing with a Barred Plymouth Rock (to bring in silver), then breeding out the barring while keeping silver, and finally refining to the desired duckwing pattern. Her Silver Duckwing Welsummers are stunning, by the way, I highly recommend you check them out!

Maintaining & Refining Silver in Your Chicken Breed

Once you have silver in your flock, you’ll need to keep breeding silver to silver birds to “lock it in” and faithfully “cull” any birds that show up carrying gold. If you relax your selection, gold will creep back in over time.

The beauty of silver is that you can combine it with almost any feather pattern — lacing, penciling, duckwing — for a completely new look without changing the pattern structure itself. This is why there are many varieties of chickens that can be found in both gold and silver versions of the same breed.

Silver might seem like just a color change, but it’s also a vital cornerstone for more advanced breeding programs. Whether your goal is to clean up feather patterns, create striking new varieties, or start down the road toward making sex-linked hybrids or autosexing lines, understanding silver gives you a versatile, easy-to-use tool in your breeding toolbox.

Want to go deeper into poultry genetics?

This article only scratches the surface of what silver can do in a breeding program. In upcoming posts, we’ll explore how silver interacts with other traits, how it can be used in sex-linked and autosexing projects, and practical strategies for incorporating it into your own flock. If you’d like to follow along — and be the first to get step-by-step insights, project updates, and real-world examples from our breeding pens — sign up for the Queen of Coops newsletter. It’s the easiest way to keep learning and start applying these tools to your own birds.

~ Kimberley Aria