What will my crosses be? Help choosing eggs for New Years hatch

I have two roos a lavender Orpington and an EE/Buff cross. My Lavs are not laying yet but my Barred Rocks, RIR, EE, and buff EE hens are. What are good ones? Which will be a black sex link? Thanks

I'm terrible at figuring out the genetics of sex link...it just doesn't click in my brain, sort of like algebra! I did however find this useful link for you...(though it still looks like greek to me)!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/261208/sex-linked-information

Hm. That's a lot of potential crosses. Let's start with the Lav roo. Lavender is a recessive diluter of black - think of him as a Black bird with a coat of Lavender-colored "paint" over the top. This means that unless he is bred to other Lavender, all the offspring will get only one copy of the Lavender gene, and it will be hidden. That means that while 100% of offspring will carry the gene, it will not physically show in their plumage. However, if they are bred back to a Lavender, the offspring (I believe around 75%) will be Lavender, although depending on what other colors are mixed in you may have some color leakage in these 2nd-gen offspring.

So first lets get the obvious cross out of the way; Lav roo over Lav hens (whenever they start laying) will be Lav offspring.

Lav roo over Barred Rock hens will produce black sex links. Pullets will be black, cockerels will be barred.

Lav roo over RIR will produce mostly black offspring, but they may have red leakage (see images of a typical black sex link for one possible example).

EEs have extremely mixed genetics so there is no way to be 100% sure, but there's a decent chance Lav roo over EE hens will produce black with some color leakage, since black is very dominant and most crosses involving black result in black or majority black offspring.

Same for the Lav roo over EE/Buffs, although Buff is known for putting up a lot of fight when crossed with black, so you're probably going to see significantly more color leakage in these ones.

As for your EE/Buff roo - pretty much any offspring he fathers will be a total mixed bag. The genetics are so mixed it's really hard to tell for sure.

So daxigait will only get a true Black Sex Link by breeding the Lavender Orp with the Barred Rock right?

(Solid male to a barred female?)

Bridebeliever said:

So daxigait will only get a true Black Sex Link by breeding the Lavender Orp with the Barred Rock right? 

(Solid male to a barred female?)

Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct. There's some potential for getting Black Sex Links from the EE/Buff roo x Barred Rock hen, but his genetics are so mixed there's really no guarantee, and I personally wouldn't consider it worth the time raising more than 1 or 2 just to test.

@QueenMishaThank you so much for your help. I can easily tell the Barred rock eggs as they are darker than the RIR eggs. I just don't want to try hatching for the first time with expensive eggs.

The EE/Buff just needs a home. He is a good guard, but not a real breeding bird unless someone just wanted some size bred in as he is big.