Sex linked breeds?

Our preschool hatches eggs each spring. I end up with the chicks...

I would like to put myself in charge of ordering, and my plan is to get sex linked breeds, so I can tell from the beginning who is a girl! My daughters fell head over heels in love with the 6 roos we ended up with last time, and we had to give them away

What is a good breed to do this with? What is the easiest breed to tell from birth what sex they are?

To get sexlinks you have to cross two different breeds of pure bred chickens.

Pure bred breeds are called autosexing. Crested Cream Legbars and Rhodebars are two breeds I can think of.

Whenever my broodies hatch babies, I always end up with more males than females. At one point on my farm, I had one hen and fifteen roosters. Sexlinks are two different breeds bred together. For example, I have two Golden Comets (also sometimes referred to as "Red Stars") they have one Leghorn parent and one Rhode Island red parent. If you're looking for an awesome breed to go with (sexing is hard until they are about four weeks old for any chicken) I'd go with Silkies. They are so friendly and sweet, they make wonderful pets and would be great for your daughter. Plus they are small so if you have a smaller coop, more can fit in nicely

Silkies are not sexable at hatch.......

If you cross a barred hen with a solid rooster you get sex linked chicks.

Black sex links are by far the easiest chicks to sex at hatch. The females have solid dark heads, while the males have a white spot on the top of the head. Easy peasy

Red sex links are also fairly easy to sex, but you have to know what you're looking for, and what crosses were used. Check out the sex link thread for some pics of different crosses...

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

enola said:

Silkies are not sexable at hatch.......

Click to expand...

I know I said that they aren't. I was only informing her of an awesome friendly breed to go with.

I assume you are in the US. If so, you can contact your county extension agent and ask them about getting eggs that can be sexed at hatch. Some agents are better than others but there is a pretty good chance your agent can help you both with getting eggs and with telling you how to sex them. You could also contact the poultry science department of your state land grant university. That’s who the extension agent will probably put you in contact with though the agent may have other contacts.

Another option is to find your state or country thread in the “Where am I? Where are you!” section on here and ask on there. There is a fair chance someone local can help you out with eggs and how to sex them.

The barred breeds like Dominique, Cuckoo Marans, and Barred Rocks can be sexed based on the size of the white spot on their head, but that can be a bit tricky. The boys have larger spots than the girls but sometimes that is not real clear. You need a bit of practice with that one to get good at it.

There are several ways to determine sex by sex linked traits (red sex kinks, black sex links, feather-sexing, or even leg color), but in all those cases the parents have to be set up genetically for that to work. There are a few myths floating around this forum about that so you have to be careful, but they do work if the parents are set up properly and some are about as clear as you can get. That link Donrae gave you gives charts for a lot of this that work.

Good luck with it. You may find a chat with your county extension agent quite helpful. That would be my first step.