Australorp Chick question

[LarryPQ]

OK- I know it is too early to sex these babies. Repeat: I KNOW it is too early to sex these babies.

I am really just interested in this:

I read somewhere crossing a non-barred black male like an austrolorp with a female of (blahblahblah) produces female chicks with black heads and male chicks with a spot of white on their head. SO: here is my first batch of australorp hatchlings. You can see 2 have black heads and 3 have some white on their heads. As I am new to the breed, I want to know if:

1. the above rule holds true for australorps: black head= girl, spots=boy
2. this is a random patterning and is indicitive of nothing
3. all australorps look exactly the same at hatching, and I somehow got a cross.

Not that I really care if they are boys or girls, I just like to think about this kind of stuff. Ideas?

ALSO-ignore the indignant look on their faces. No one appreciates getting their picture taken at 5 am.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The black chicks in this photo are female Australorps. Believe it or not, there are 28 camera shy chicks in this photo, 10 of which are Australorps.

I took the following from a sticky on top of the breed/genetics/showing section. Thanks Tadkerson.

A few specifics to remember about a black sex-linked cross are:

1) the female must carry sex-linked barring (barred),

2) the male can not carry sex-linked barring (not barred),

3) one of the birds must be homozygous for extended black or carry two extended black genes and

4) neither of the birds can carry dominant white or in other words be a white bird. Some recessive white birds may work on the male side of the cross but you never know if it will work or not work. So I suggest not using white birds.

5). Almost any color of male ( not including white) can be used in a black sex linked cross. White birds sometimes carry dominant white which would not work in a black sex linked cross.

From this, an Australorp rooster can father a sex link chick if the mother has the sex-link barring gene and is not white. However, purebred Australorps are not sexlink chicks. Mine are hatchery chicks, not developed by a breeder that might produce more consistent looking chicks.

This is what one of the adults looks like. She is actually solid black. That is just the sun shining off her feathers.

 

[Dustin Biery]

The australorps in the OPs post are full australorp, their coloration is indicative of nothing. The only time that white on the heads of the males will stand true is if it a solid (non-barred) male over a barred female, which results in sex-links.

 

[LarryPQ]

Right Dustin. Mine are SUPPOSED to be pure austrolorps. Since this is my first time having the breed, I want to know if the spots vs. no spots means anything. I find it odd that the chicks have such a distinct difference. They are either black or spotted. None look "mussed" or "dirty" or "blended".

It is always possible they are not pure, as they are shipped eggs and chickens will be chickens---but the seller is pretty careful with her flock.

Here is some pictures I found online. See how some have white on their heads and some not? I figure there must be an Australorp entusiast out there that knows if the spots mean anything.

BTW-These are NOT MY CHICKS

Sorry to whomever I lifted them from (flikr)

 

[Elite Silkies]

Laree,

I assure you the Australorp chicks are pure. All of my breeds are closed flocks. They do not free range so there is no way that they can breed other breeds or be bred by another breed. My Australorps are not hatchery stock, if that makes any difference.

My Silkies are also a closed flock and do not free range. Too many cats in the neighborhood to let them free range. And...... I live in the City, so can't have them visiting the neighbors.

I do not think that you can sex an Australorp from the coloring of the down.

 

[Dustin Biery]

I agree with Cammy, their down color is just variable at times, as you have noticed with your lorps. Once they begin to feather, you will probably also notice that they have white feathers in their wings. This is also normal and usually they molt them out in the first molt.

 

[Elite Silkies]

Quote:
My lorps kept the white tips on their wings for a long while, which is quite normal with the breed. The chicks in question are out of my flock, so I know that they are Pure Australorp chicks. I do not have another breed in my Aussie pen.


Ridgerunner how can you tell that the Australorp chicks that you have pictured in his post are females? Did you have them sexed from a hatchery? I am unaware of any feather sexing on an Australorp.

 

[LarryPQ]

oooh how neat! Sometimes I look to hard at things. But if I didn't I would never learn anything.

Anyway, I couldn't care less what sex they are---it just seemed odd to me there was such a distinction

ALSO- the first 12 chicks I ever bought were 8 yellow w/ random spots and 4 chipmunkers. Oddly enough I got 7 males from the white bunch and 1 male from the chipmunky (EE) bunch. The one white female was the MOST spotted of the white ones---say 1/2 and 1/2. They were all barnyard mutts, and the seller had mentioned she wanted to try sex-linking her birds. I wonder if I got her first batch of mad-scientist-like experiments!

Anyway, it all got me thinking. Gotta have SOMETHING to do when I am pretending to work

Just kidding, back to numbers!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
They were sexed at the hatchery, then they grew up. Laying well too. I meant the photo to show that they were marked differently as chicks and were all female anyway.

Sorry my original post was not clear. A paragraph seems to have disappeared while loading photos. My Australorp pullets did have different markings as chicks and did have some white wing tips as juveniles, but they are all black now. I did not mean to imply that sexing of Australorp chicks was possible, just that the Australorp can be used to make a sex link chick as asked by the OP. It has to cross with a non-white hen with sex linked barring for that to happen.

 

[feathersnuggles]

I'll throw in my teeny experience - with hatchery chicks, which were both represented as female BA chicks. I had 2, one with a black head & one whose head had a lot of white. The white head turned out to be male; the black head female.

From the left, #3 & #5:

Right chick in back row & left chick in front row: