cross a (G.Campine X SpeckledSussex) on red sexlink? [more pics added]

I am going to set some eggs from my "misc" pen in a couple days, for my neighbor; but I would like to be able to tell which chicks came from which types of hens, as much as possible anyhow and am contemplating including a few eggs from my Speckled Sussex pen (purebreds) as well.

Obviously the SS eggs would produce identifiably SS chicks...

... but more than half the 'mutt' eggs are sired by a roo who is (half SS, half Golden Campine), with the eggs being out of red star hens. Here is a pic of them all, sorry it's not better but I hope you can see the roo's coloring well enough:



What are those mutt chicks likely to end up looking like -- will they be distinctly different from the SS (preferably at an early age) or is there the potential for some to have SS coloring that I won't be able to tell apart well?

Thanks,

Pat, debating whether to set the SS eggs because I don't think I want to get into toepunching or et

Red Stars are a commercial hybrid. Without knowing their genome, which would be patented, you have no way of knowing. However I doubt they carry the Mottling gene so you would not expect any Speckled coloured chicks from crossing your (SS X GC) cockerel with the Red Star hens.
David

Oh, d'oh, that makes perfect sense Thank you!

What if I set some eggs that are out of the roo's full sister and sired by a sussex -- that would be SS x (SSxGC)? Because there *is* the possibility of homozygosity for the mottled gene, does that mean that some could come out looking quite like SS - or would the different color background of the GC make them look different? (Did that make any sense?)

Thanks,

Pat

Sounds like someone from the Aloha project needs to help here.

Quote:
I can't really tell in the pics but, but are your sexlink hens black tailed or white tailed?

If you cross the roo to his full sisters, you would get about 25% mottled birds and they should have a different colored background than the SS.
BTW Can you please get better, close up pics of the roo and hens from the SS X GC cross? that is an interesting color.

Hey Rareroo,

The sexlinks are the white-tailed type.

Here are two more pics of the (SSxGC) roo:





The best way I can describe it is, he's basically hen-feathered, and his body is like if you took a GC and expanded the black areas of the coloring til they nearly take over (with a *lot* of green sheen), and the neck and head are more orange/chestnut rather than the gold of a campine.

And here is a (sorry, not very good, she is a nutcase) picture of his full sister, her body color is pretty much same as his, just with the neck and head color more uh pencilled or whatever, the way a lot of female versions of various colors are, you know?



I was not actually intending to cross him with his full sister -- rather, his sister is in the pen with their father, so you would get "3/4 sussex" chicks from that -- but, quick before I put this roo in the stewpot b/c I am tired of being flogged, do you think that crossed with his full sister he would produce any particularly interesting/entertaining looking offspring (those 25% you referred to, that are homozygous mottled but with different background color)?



Pat, willing to duel him a bit longer if it would produce entertaining specimens, but otherwise getting a hankerin' for curry...

I can't answer your questions but will put in something I noticed from the Jubilee Project. I'll include a link to it. The juvenile Speckled Sussex x Buff Orp cross showed the speckling but the adult plumage did not show the speckling. I'm just thinking that may make it a little harder to tell the young ones apart, which is one of your questions.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=257333

I don't know enough about these to try to run Henk's calculator on this one, but I've noticed when running other crosses mated with crosses, you can get some really surprising results. I would not be surprised if the Red Star donated some genetic material from her red father and the rooster donated some from the Specled Sussex that the resulting chicks might look a lot like the pure Speckled Sussex chicks until they got rid of their juvenile plumage. I will watch what others say, but I'd suspect you might be safer to rely on mechanical means rather than color, especially in the juveniles. Maybe like separating the eggs in the bator with wire, then using food dye to mark the chicks. But I'm sure you know even better tricks.

Anyway, I am certainly no expert on this so take my suspicions for what little they are worth but mainly wanted to point out the Jubilee project results on juvenile plumage.

OK if your Sexlink hens are white tailed, that means that they have dominant white in them and so when you cross with them, about half of the chicks would be a black and red pattern and the other half should be red and white, the dominant white would be replacing where the black is in the red and black colored ones.

Some young split mottled birds will have light mottleing in their juvenile breast plumage, like Ridgerunner said, but it accutally looks like little mottleing spots at the young age, on birds that carry two copies of the mottleing gene, and are actually mottled, they take until they are nearly mature to get the nice clean looking mottleing, in mottled birds, they when they start feathering, they start mottling at the breast and the breast will be almost solid white for a white, then the white spreads over the hole bird as it ages, young split mottled birds just have distinct little mottling dots in the breasts that will molt out before they mature. I have a little black split mottled Silchin pullet ( Mottled Cochin roo on a white Silkie hen) and she had the little mottles but has molted most of them out already and I didnt get any pics while she had it, but here are my young Speckled Sussex so you can see the nearly solid white breasts. So they shouldn't be hard to tell apart.

you can see in the breast that most of it is white, the splits wouldn't even have as much mottleing as this pullet has.

Just for fun I used Henk's Fuzzy Logic calculator to cross a Speckled Sussex male with a Campine female, then crossed the resulting female with a Speckled Sussex male. I'd forgotten about Henk's Fuzzy Logic calculator but Speckled Sussex and Campine were both there. With all the usual disclaimers about the effects of bleeding, melanizers, and possible recessives in the original parent stock, I thought you might be interested.

Phenotypes:
Pullets:
zwart getekend rood (onvolledig) columbia met minder halstekening | black patterned red (incomplete) columbian clearnecked
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood (onvolledig) porselein met minder halstekening | black patterned red (incomplete) millefleur clearnecked
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood -halzig/berken bont | black patterned red -necked/birchen pied/mottled
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood -halzig/berken | black patterned red -necked/birchen
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood columbia | black patterned red columbian
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood porselein | black patterned red millefleur
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood slordig geband bont | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled pied/mottled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood slordig geband | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood slordig gepeld bont | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled pied/mottled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood slordig gepeld | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood vuil-columbia | black patterned red incomplete-columbian
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Pullets:
zwart getekend rood vuil-porselein | black patterned red incomplete-millefleur
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood (onvolledig) columbia met minder halstekening | black patterned red (incomplete) columbian clearnecked
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood (onvolledig) porselein met minder halstekening | black patterned red (incomplete) millefleur clearnecked
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood -halzig/berken bont | black patterned red -necked/birchen pied/mottled
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood -halzig/berken | black patterned red -necked/birchen
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood columbia | black patterned red columbian
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood porselein | black patterned red millefleur
Ratio = 8/128 = 6.25%, minimum of animals to breed: 16

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood slordig geband bont | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled pied/mottled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood slordig geband | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood slordig gepeld bont | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled pied/mottled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

Cockerels:
zwart getekend rood slordig gepeld | black patterned red incomplete transverse pencilled
Ratio = 4/128 = 3.125%, minimum of animals to breed: 32

I just wanted to add that I have hatched out pure SS and SS x orp, rock, and who knows what. I could NOT tell the chicks apart- they all looked like SS.