Our first chicks! What are your thoughts on breed?

Ol Grey Mare said:

The chicks at TSC are purebred (well, as pure as you get with production bred birds) - so if they are Australorps they are not mixes -- however, the fact that they said they would look like dominiques at maturity combined with the "mix" leads me to believe they are black sex links.  If that is true, though, they will not be barred (like a dominique) because only male BSL mature to be barred and the barring gene is indicated by a yellow dot in the down on the top of a chick's head, which your birds are lacking.  *IF* they are sex links, the lack of a dot is good news as that would indicate they are females - which should mature with a black base color with some copper leakage around their neck, chest and sometimes on the body as well. 

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KimPahl said:

Thanks, guys.  We shall see!!!  Doesn't really matter too much but I was curious.  Not sure what the guy at TSC meant then b/c he told me he has these same birds at his house and they are grown but maybe he was just mistaken or had no clue what he was talking about.  Who knows!  If they are BSL that's good to know about the dot on the head b/c none of them have that.  However, we just had one of our eggs hatch from our Dominque roo & one of our RSL girls and it has what looks to be a white patch on his head. It's only 1 day old today so who knows....

Appreciate the feedback.

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