I was recently asked to help out with a local high school’s egg hatching project. It is for Biology, and I learned that they will be having a genetics unit 2016. I decided I should see if I could make this a genetics project.
I could do this two ways, sex-linked chickens or BBS(blue, black, splash). Sex-linked chicks can sexed by whether or not they have a spot on their heads, it is 99.9% accurate. For BBS, if you cross a black chicken with a blue chicken, you get 50% black, 25% blue and 25% splash.
I could not find any BBS breeds this time of year for less then $60 and the only sex-links I could find where Legbars(pretty expensive). I didn’t really want to spend a lot of money as 1) things can go wrong in a classroom 2) I won’t be keeping the chicks.
After doing more looking, I settled with My Pet Chicken. I got a 10% discount since I am a member on Backyard Chickens(valid for a limited time). I also really want eggs soon so the chicks wont hatch when it is too cold. So I didn’t want to get a breed that is in high demand. So I got the “Eggs for Education” pack. Maybe I will end up getting a sex-linked chick. They should of the week of 10/12/15, but the 12th was Columbus Day so the Post Offices where closed. The ended up coming on the 19th. They weren't held at Post Office so their ride was quite long.
