This is great information."The Red Sex Link is a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster over a Rhode Island White hen"
Myth Buster
This mythology is very, very entrenched and mainly caused by hatcheries using this bogus statements on their website. Remember folks, these same hatcheries often use photos from poultry shows of award winning birds, shown in their show cages, suggesting that this is their parent stock for the chicks you can order!!!
Geesh! Could anything BE more inaccurate? OK, now the myth stated above. This is absurd, of course, as the RIW is likely either rare as hen's teeth or extinct with a few breeders perhaps "rebuilding" them along the lines of Kathy's Delaware project. The hatcheries aren't using RIWs. First, folks, please remember the RIW has a rose comb, yet we never see any rose combed RSL birds sold. Sorry. The average RSL is more likely a commercial bird, sold through the retail hatcheries with nice, cute, retail type names for the consumer. Meanwhile, the brown egg industry buys them by the millions, around the world, as a Bovan, Hubbard, ISA, Hi-Sex, etc, etc, etc.
The ISA Brown was one of the first. It has been bred for now over 35 years, the product of poultry genetics. 4 separate lines are involved. Two lines for the red side and two lines for the white side. These are of European origin and the lines are secret and proprietary. The two white lines likely include lots of European white sussex type blood as well as white Leghorn blood. The red side includes Rhode Island Red, but also likely has Brown Leghorn as well. In any case, NONE of the grandparent birds would be "pure" anything, in that they are no longer "breeds" but hyper specialize strains of grandparent stock. The commercial broiler, commonly called a CX is produced for the meat industry in a very similar way.
I chose my hatchery BAs because of their reputation, and that they were a breed. Somehow I knew I could breed some BAs together and make some more BAs, which was my only consideration. 2 of these will make more of these.
Whereas, the uber-hybridized "breeds" cannot be guaranteed to replicate the same thing if you breed 2 of them together.
That is the extent of my breeding knowledge and of my knowledge of genetics.
But so far, my BAs do seem to create more BAs, so it's working.
Now I would like to know a lot more about breeding and its intricacies, and I have been part of the Australorp group for ages. They speak a foreign language there, and are concerned about a lot of stuff that is way above my head. But I keep reading, so I can learn more.
Thanks for being a teacher. I promise to pay you back by being a good student.