Clean legs and feathered legs - Has anyone ever tried to see if there is an auto sexing trait with r

[calichickies]

Hi There -
just wondering if you have any personal experience with sexing by leg feathers. What I mean is:
If you have a clean legged roo and a feather legged hen would their chicks be sex-able with regards to the leg feathers? Would all the clean legged chicks be roos and all the feather legged chicks be hens or vice versa?? Has anyone ever tried to cross breed for this -- to see if this is a sex-link-able trait?
Just thought it was an interesting genetic question.
Do the chicks generally exhibit the traits of the parent that is their own gender?
What I mean is: Do boys generally take after the traits of their fathers, and pullets take after their hen mothers??
And I'm not talking about pure breeds -- more interested in cross-breeding genetic characteristics that you may have noticed.
Thanks!

 

[happyhens1972]

I don't think this is the case....I have four chicks at the moment. They are all fathered by a Cream Legbar cockerel but three are mothered by a salmon faverolle and one I am not sure who the mother is.

Out of the three faverolle cross chicks, two are feather legged, have five toes and the faverolle muff, are feathering up just as a salmon fav would and you'd be hard pushed to tell them from purebred faverolle chicks....so they are definitely showing their mother's traits.

However, the third fav cross has all the feather colour of a salmon fav, except she also has two dark spots on her head fluff, but no muff, no leg feathers and only four toes.....so is showing a mixture of mum's colouring, dad's colouring and dad's lack of muff, leg feathers and extra toe.

The fourth chick looks absolutely identical to a purebred female Legbar chick but she did not come from a blue egg and therefore cannot be mothered by my one female legbar hen. So despite being crossed with either a faverolle, a cochin or a speckled sussex, she is only showing the physical characteristics of her father and has no leg feathers despite two of the possible three mothers having feathered legs.

I am 99.9% sure all the chicks are female.

 

[donrae]

I believe leg feathering is an incomplete dominant, but it's not sex linked at all.

 

[hdowden]

First generation crosses of say something like a silkie to a game bird will yield all feather legged babies take those babies back to a clean legged bird and you will get both clean legged and feather legged babies. It is not a sex link trait.