Color sexing buckeye, new hampshire, buff Orpington.

[Dinoroar]

I have a run of NHs coming from Freedom Ranger next week. I will be marking them and taking photos to see if the trait is still there.

That will be very interesting to see!

 

[Dinoroar]

I ended up with 6 buckeye chicks as my late hatcher didn’t make it.

The breeder said they are Baker line. I just chatted with her a bit about color sexing and said that for her it is is only partly accurate and that she relies more body shape and early feathering to sex hers. Her info plus looking at my batch tells me that cackle’s including buckeyes in a list of color sexable breeds is misleading.

I examined them all for light wing spots and dark head spots/ dorsal stripes. I color banded them so I can follow up when they grow but the results are not cut and dry.

I have 1 chick with dark head spot, dorsal stripe and no wing spot. By cackle’s description that would be clearly female. (Tan band)

1 has no head spot and fairly pronounced light wing spot so would indicate male (blue band)


1 chick is much lighter overall it has a lighter head but has no noticeable wing spot. (Yellow band).

2 small dark head spots but also light wing spots (red (darker spot) & white bands)

1 has no dark head and only light wing spots. (Green band)

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if it's like other autosexing breeds like Legbars, where if you just breed them indiscriminately without making sure that the trait remains strong in your line, you can actually end up with Legbars that don't autosex. It's possible if you selected for only the chicks that properly autosexed and only bred them that you would find the trait stronger in future generations. But I agree, it is a bit misleading to put a blanket statement out there like that.

Cute batch of babies, anyway! It'll be interesting to see how they grow!

 

[Dinoroar]

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if it's like other autosexing breeds like Legbars, where if you just breed them indiscriminately without making sure that the trait remains strong in your line, you can actually end up with Legbars that don't autosex. It's possible if you selected for only the chicks that properly autosexed and only bred them that you would find the trait stronger in future generations. But I agree, it is a bit misleading to put a blanket statement out there like that.

Cute batch of babies, anyway! It'll be interesting to see how they grow!

Hmm… maybe cackle’s line has the trait.

But oh well, I didnt come across the idea until after I’d selected the breed. If it had played out to be actuate it would have been pretty cool but not something I was counting on.