Would this be possible?

[PRchick]

I was just thinking. If black sex link chicks are a rooster with black over a barred rock hen, couldn’t you use a copper marans rooster and get a black sex link that lays pretty dark eggs?

Bear in mind that my knowledge of chicken genetics is almost nonexistent, but it would be nice to be able to tell the sex of dark egg layers.

Another question would be, could a marans-like (dark egg laying) chicken be bred to be auto-sexing. Just thinking that Cream Legbars, Bielefelders and some others have been bred to be auto-sexing.

Please be kind, I tend to get crazy ideas a lot of the time.

 

[FuzzyCritters]

Yes, you can use a BCM (and any other non-cuckoo variety) roo to breed sex links. A few hatcheries sell one such hybrid call a Dominant Copper, which is BCM roo over barred rock hens. You can also make sex links that are pure marans by using a cuckoo maran as the barred hen.

A dark laying autosexing breed is possible, but it would take a lot of time to make.

 

[PRchick]

Thank you FuzzyCritters!

I had not thought of using the Cuckoo Marans with a Marans Rooster! And the great thing is that my friend bought Chicks recently and she has a Blue Copper Marans Cockerel and a Cuckoo Marans Hen.

It seems I could probably try that out in about a year.

And who knows, I might make the auto-sexing breed my project after I retire in a couple of years.

Now, I guess I need to start learning about chicken genetics.