Question from LOUD HEN

[RIR-YELLOWLEGS]

What are golden sexed links my local feed store has pullet of this breed in stock and what is a red ranger straight run.

 

[Kelsie2290]

BYC review page on the Sex Links https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/golden-sex-link Gold/Red sex links are crosses that are bred to be able to be sexed at hatch by their color so you can be sure of getting girls (girls are reddish, boys are yellowish) the girls lay a whole lot of big brown eggs the first few years they live... they go by different names depending on the hatchery, ie Red Star, Golden Comet, ISA Brown etc... they are probably the most popular brown egg layer.

Red Rangers are a slow growing meat bird, though the females will lay eggs ... straight run means they are not sexed, so you can wind up with males or females, thread on them https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/746515/red-rangers/0_20

 

[RIR-YELLOWLEGS]

Thank you for the information and the page link i will surf and again thanks!

 

[Michael OShay]

What are golden sexed links my local feed store has pullet of this breed in stock and what is a red ranger straight run.

Golden Sex Link is one of a number of labels under which some hatcheries market their Red Sex Links, which are hybrids produced by crossing a red gene rooster with a silver gene hen. Not only can the be sexed by color from hatching (males are whitish, females are reddish), but they are egg laying machines, outlaying either parent breed. It's one of the interesting quirks of hybridization. Pullets are female chickens under a year old.
Red Rangers are hybrid meat birds that are slower growing than Cornish crosses. Unlike Cornish crosses, which are usually butchered at 7-8 weeks, Red Rangers are butchered at about 12 weeks. Because they are slower growing than the Cornish crosses, Red Rangers lack the health problems that plague the Cornish crosses (due to their abnormal growth rate) and unlike the Cornish crosses, the Red Rangers can live in a free range environment. Even though they are less profitable as meat birds than Cornish crosses (due to their slower growth) a number of people say they have a better flavor because of the more traditional methods used to raise them.

 

[Michael OShay]

what is a . . . straight run.

P.S. I forgot to add, a straight run means that the chicks are not sexed before being shipped. They are shipped in the order in which they hatch from the eggs. Statistically, a straight run should come out to about 50% pullets and 50% cockerels, however an inordinate number of times there seems to be more cockerels in the order than pullets and I suspect hatcheries often add some of the unwanted cockerels after filling pullet orders. Because of this, I never order straight runs anymore. Most hatcheries only guarantee 90% on sexed orders anyway (a few guarantee 95%) so in an order of 25 chicks you will likely get a cockerel or two anyway.