That is more than I ever knew about them...lol.. of course chickens are not hugely popular around me so if I don't have breeders of whatever breed, I know next to nothing..
I've always thought of them as 3 separate but similar breeds if that makes sense, but other than knowing that an EE was somehow related to an Ameraucana I know nothing..lol..
Now I do have some chicks from Super Blue Layers, and I've also heard the same birds (i hesitate to say breed here for obviois reasons..)referred to as Sapphires. .but I've done very little research on them.. but I did get a variety of eggs for the strictly layer flock I'm adding..everything from olive eggers, the Super blues, EEs, and true Ameraucana, some CCL crossed with something else strictly for egg color. . Some have hatched, some are still cooking but this year's hatches I have been keeping super detailed records like egg color it hatched from and pics every few days the first couple weeks and then once a week after that. Hoping it helps me on down the line if I ever decide to pull certain birds for breeding or anything..
And don't think I said it in my ramblings..but thank you so very much for the explanation. ..that is amazing info ♡♡
I do know this one..lol..autosexing is a trait that breeds true in a breed and sex link is created by breeding 2 different breeds that create babies that can be sexed at hatch, but those babies can't be raised, bred together and produce more sex linked babies. .
Both are ways to have chicks that are able to be sorted male or female as soon as they are mostly dry after hatch..
Now I don't have a clue about most of the genes needed to be present to create a sex link..that's a whole 'nother ballgame
Your Sapphires are White Leghorn crossed with a blue layer (in the UK Cream Crested Legbars). They will be predominantly white feathered as White Leghorns carry dominant white. Many show the tuft from the CCL. Since they only have 1 blue gene, they produce the pretty light sapphire egg (1 blue with white making light blue).
EDITED TO ADD: The Super Blue Layers on My Pet Chicken look like Ameraucana in the back ground, and have to be first generation Ameraucana with White Leghorn to guarantee a blue egg, or that Ameraucana with 2nd generation Sapphire to make for some darker blue layers and some light blue layers (which is why MPC warns the hatching egg you receive will be white or light tint blue).
http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog...Hatching-Eggs-Super-Blue-Egg-Layer-p1950.aspx
Breeding an EE rooster or a CCL cross (first generation) rooster to a pure bred white layer is a good way to figure out if your boy has 1 or 2 blue genes...within a couple of generations you'll go from light blue to dark blue as the blue genes line up.
As to what makes a sex link...that has to do with the way chicken genders are formed and the fact that several feather colors and patterns are sex linked.
As in humans and mammals, each offspring gets 1 set of genes from mom and 1 set from dad.
In mammals and humans, the male determines the sex. (XX Female and XY male...the children get 1 from mom and 1 from dad so mathematically the children are XX female or XY male, with dad determining the sex as he has the Y gene to give).
In chickens it is the opposite. The mother carries the "short" gene which is represented by W, so the ZW mother determines the sex. Those offspring inheriting the W gene from mom will get a Z from dad but be ZW female. Those inheriting the Z from the mother will also get a Z from the father and become ZZ male.
Now here we get to the answer of how do we sex link....some colors and patterns are carried on the Z gene and therefore sex-linked....but ONLY if mom carries them on her Z gene.
Now if the mother has dominant color genes on her Z gene, such as barring or silver, then only those offspring which inherit mom's Z gene will get her dominant color genes. She must be matched with a father that does NOT have any dominant color genes on his Z gene.
So take a Z-barred mom with a Z-nonbarred dad, and you get a barred ZZ male chick....or take a Z-silver from mom and Z-red from dad to get a silver (dominant over red) ZsilverZred male.
The females always gain the W from mom which does not have the dominant color pattern (remember that's attached to mom's Z gene), so all females will reflect dads Z coloring (red or non-barred).
That's obviously simplified (and about as much as I understand at this point), but since you are keeping book on pairings for future purposes, I thought this would be helpful.
You can find a good genetic article here:
http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page2.html
And then this series makes things pretty clear from the basics to more advanced genetics.
https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/genetics-mini-series/
Happy hatching!
Have fun (for those interested)!
For those not...I'm done
LofMc
