Breeding Sex Links - third generation

[A.T. Hagan]

I've been meaning to ask you. From looking at your photos I'd say your F3 birds already look pretty much like White Rocks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

She does indeed. I think she smaller than a white rock, has a different tail and the legs are not as yellow. There's things to improve.

 

[Fred's Hens]

We probably hatched over 40 white chicks. Of course, we're breeding commercial birds, commercial hatchery birds that are not ever intended to be used for breeding in the first place. Of the 40 chicks, I'd say only 3 or 4 birds met my personal criteria for being bred next go round. Sure, all the other hens are in the laying flocks are laying quite nicely, but I guess the point I wish to make is this. Hatch, hatch, hatch and cull, cull, cull.

We are running about the same percentage in breeding other birds that began as hatchery stock too, so this isn't too surprising, really. If all a person wants is to hatch a bunch of barnyard birds, I suppose all this selectivity isn't necessary.

 

[tlcollins13]

But your research is very useful to somebody interesting in breeding for flock inmprovement. Thanks alot.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

She does indeed.  I think she smaller than a white rock, has a different tail and the legs are not as yellow.  There's things to improve.

Except for perhaps selecting for larger size the rest are irrelevant if you are focusing on practical qualities.

Size versus egg production will always be a trade off I believe. If I could keep them in the neighborhood of 300 eggs in their pullet year I'd accept a slightly smaller size.

I'm going to cull out the first of the cockerels in my Production Easter Egger birds this weekend. The obvious ones. Have a few that aren't yet clear to me.

 

[normanack]

Newbie jumping in here to say that I'm so impressed with what you all are doing. I love chickens, but have little practical experience (yet). My joy is doing research. I want to know what if? And why? Frustratingly, good research appears to be scanty in so many areas. So your projects are absolutely fascinating.

Please continue to let us know how things are going. No detail is too small, nothing is uninteresting.

BTW, Fred's Hens, I appreciate that one of your goals is a well-tempered bird. Personally I think that is incredibly important, yet often overlooked, to the many and growing non-industrial chicken keepers.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Update:

Well, it has been awhile since I've updated this, so I thought I'd post a few thoughts about this year's program. We took the F3 white birds and put them under a White-type F2 rooster. The results were almost entirely unsatisfactory, from our point of view. We picked up black specs, some odd body shapes, etc. Not too pleased. We only hatched a few dozen chicks, but we only got one or two of what we were looking for.

While not sex-link to sex-link, we really did want to try going back under a RIR. I mentioned a few pages back that this was something we really wanted to do.

So, we did put some F3 hens under the young RIR rooster shown. That photo is from last April, and he has filled out very nicely since.




Sorry the photos aren't the best. The results were terrific, from our point of view. We did get a golden sex-link type pullet who we think is a winner. But what we're pleased with is the production red type chicks. They're only 4-8-12 weeks old, at this point, we will withhold final judgement until they mature, but we really, really like what we got. Some of the earlier hatched pullets will reach POL in October. I'll chart their egg laying carefully, both for quantity and quality.

I'll see if I can capture a decent photo of the 8 week chicks. It's raining right now.

 

[Nsampsel]

Update:

Well, it has been awhile since I've updated this, so I thought I'd post a few thoughts about this year's program. We took the F3 white birds and put them under a White-type F2 rooster. The results were almost entirely unsatisfactory, from our point of view. We picked up black specs, some odd body shapes, etc. Not too pleased. We only hatched a few dozen chicks, but we only got one or two of what we were looking for.

While not sex-link to sex-link, we really did want to try going back under a RIR. I mentioned a few pages back that this was something we really wanted to do.

So, we did put some F3 hens under the young RIR rooster shown. That photo is from last April, and he has filled out very nicely since.




Sorry the photos aren't the best. The results were terrific, from our point of view. We did get a golden sex-link type pullet who we think is a winner. But what we're pleased with is the production red type chicks. They're only 4-8-12 weeks old, at this point, we will withhold final judgement until they mature, but we really, really like what we got. Some of the earlier hatched pullets will reach POL in October. I'll chart their egg laying carefully, both for quantity and quality.

I'll see if I can capture a decent photo of the 8 week chicks. It's raining right now.

This cross back to the RIR is where I would be interested in acquiring chicks &/or eggs at this point. I have so many people wanting to know gender on their chicks that this would be incredibly beneficial for me when selling my hatchlings.

 

[Fred's Hens]

This cross back to the RIR is where I would be interested in acquiring chicks &/or eggs at this point. I have so many people wanting to know gender on their chicks that this would be incredibly beneficial for me when selling my hatchlings.

If you want to assure the buyers of your chicks, you'll likely want to simply breed your own sex links. F1s. Simply put a red/gold cock over a silver/white hen, of course. We simply have not established our white birds, generation after generation, as pure silver white. If I needed to make sexable chicks for chick sales, I'd invest in some parent stock that would assure the accuracy you need.

Our production reds were not sexable at hatch, but quite sexable at 6 weeks. Here's picture or two.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Here's a couple more.