Created a sex-link but don't know which is a boy and which is a girl! Cream Legbar rooster X Black

I try to keep only pure breeds but my daughter got some Black Star hens for 4-H. Great birds, but no point in breeding them...until I just got up to my eyeballs in eggs. So, I had them in with my Cream Legbars because I knew that I could tell the eggs apart. Since I had so many eggs I decided that I may as well incubate some of the Black Star eggs and make green egg-laying "Easter Eggers". Well, the first batch went horribly because I had put the eggs in an old hatcher because my better hatcher was full and the resulting chicks hatched out very weak and a few chicks died right after hatching. In that mix were a buff colored chick, a buff chick with chipmunk stripes, and a black chick with a white dot on it's head that I thought was one of my Black Australorps (and accidentally sold it as such). I figured the Easter Eggers were the two buff chicks and figured the chipmunk stripes would differentiate between the male and female. So...with the second batch I got four of these slightly shaded buff chicks (one with a trace of chipmunk stripes) and two black chicks with definite white spots on the head. What gets confusing (not that I wouldn't be confused anyway) is that both breeds have Barred Rock genes but the Cream Legbar is auto-sexing but with the Black Star cross the barred pattern goes from mother to son. Anyway, I'm hoping some chicken genetics experts can help me with this one. There definitely is a clear sex-link going on here but I don't know if this is auto-sexing or just sex-link or who is who. On a side note, I sold all of my Black Stars but now I'm wondering if a sex-ling green egg layer wouldn't have been worth selling. I'm assuming that if I bread these chicks that the genetics would be all over the map and maybe also if I were to breed the daughters back to the father...but I really don't know.












I was a bit confused at first because I hatched out both Black Australorps and Buff Orpingtons with these chicks and they sort of all look similar (except the one striped one that died that I thought might have been my only easter egger out of the batch. Thanks for any help!

Oh, and on another side note, I tend to hatch out a LOT more cockerels than pullets with the Cream Legbars so it certainly wouldn't be surprising if the buffs were the cockerels and the black ones were the pullets. That also might take the fun out of breeding these on a regular basis. Also, any idea what the adults would end up looking like?

you won't get sex linked traits using this cross

Unless you've got some Ameracauna in there I don't think you'll see Easter Eggers either, but I might be wrong. I thought Easter Eggers were mutts from crossing Ameracaunas with another breed or variety.

Blooie said:

Unless you've got some Ameracauna in there I don't think you'll see Easter Eggers either, but I might be wrong. I thought Easter Eggers were mutts from crossing Ameracaunas with another breed or variety.

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EE are created crossing a blue egg laying breed with another breed - in this scenario, the CL would be the blue egg laying parent.

Black sex links require that the hen be barred and the cock be non-barred, you have a barred cocl (CCL) over non-barred hens (black stars). You should get all barred chicks from that cross, so the sexes will look the same.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

But here's the deal...these chicks are definitely all from the Cream Legbar crossed with the Black Star. Are the buff and black chicks all supposed to be a mix of males and females and not divided by these colors?

Ol Grey Mare said:

EE are created crossing a blue egg laying breed with another breed - in this scenario, the CL would be the blue egg laying parent.

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Thanks, my friend! I did have it wrong, but I wasn't worried - I knew that if I was someone would clear it up very well. You did. And again I've learned something.

RobG7aChattTN said:

But here's the deal...these chicks are definitely all from the Cream Legbar crossed with the Black Star. Are the buff and black chicks all supposed to be a mix of males and females and not divided by these colors?

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Yes, each chick color has a 50/50 chance of being male or female, there is no correlation of color to gender. The different color chicks are because the black star is itself a hybrid and (apparently) does not carry 2 copies of the extended black gene. The black chicks carry a single copy of EB (like their mother, the black star) and that is dominant to other down colors, like the buff. The buff chicks did not get an EB gene from their mother, but maybe wheaten from their grandfather, carried by their mother as a recessive gene (hidden in her by the extended black from her mother).

dheltzel said:

Yes, each chick color has a 50/50 chance of being male or female, there is no correlation of color to gender. The different color chicks are because the black star is itself a hybrid and (apparently) does not carry 2 copies of the extended black gene. The black chicks carry a single copy of EB (like their mother, the black star) and that is dominant to other down colors, like the buff. The buff chicks did not get an EB gene from their mother, but maybe wheaten from their grandfather, carried by their mother as a recessive gene (hidden in her by the extended black from her mother).

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