Cream legbar hen X Ameraucana rooster

[wortham]

They have the combination to be sex links but not auto sexing for more than the first generation.
What is your ameraucana? He he a color pure true ameraucana or just a mixed color hatchery ameraucana?
If you know his genes you could figure out what color the chicks would be.
If he is unknown genetics then it will be a matter of whether the offspring were a color that you can easily see a head spot or not.
They don't have to be a solid color many color/patterns will work its just harder to see the head spot on some lighter colors and really hard on like buff/yellow chicks.

Awesome info The Moonshiner. That's great news to me just starting out. I'm working on a good bunch of laying hens with lots of colored eggs and this will all help me in the mix. Thank you so much.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Just to clarify for me. Autosexing is from a pure breed that can be sexed at birth from generation to generation. But certain crosses like I am gonna try would be considered sex linked. And will only be sexable at hatch from the original cross?

You've got it.
You're creating sex links using the barring gene and the fact that it shows in chicks with the head spot.
With the sex link like you're trying it works because the males get one barring gene from their mother and show a head spot. Pullets only receive sex link genes from their fathers and since the father isn't barred he passes no barring/ head spot to pullet chicks.
CCL are an auto sexing breed. It works sort of on the same principle except instead of working because of cockerels getting one barring gene and pullets getting none it works on the principle of pullets getting one barring gene and cockerels getting two.
One copy gives a head spot but two copies in addition to getting a headspot the double dose of barring also dilutes the color/pattern in the chicks. It best works on the brown chipmunk striped chick down.
Since with autosexing both the father and mother carry all the barring genes they can they pass them to all chicks.
Your sex links only work one generation because to work the mother needs barring and the father needs to not be barred. The offspring it produces come out the opposite with males being single gene barred and the pullets non barred. Hence why the chicks can't carry it on to the next generation.
Some times you can make sex links and then with a couple generations of breeding develope them into auto sexing.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Yup...Moonshiner is spot on.

My CL hen bred to my Barnevelder rooster produces gorgeous sex linked chicks, first generation (the boys come out looking like CL roosters while the girls have a black base and gorgeous gold pencilling). As chicks, the boys are muted with a clear head dot while the girls are chipmunk and sometimes just a splash/sliver of white head dotting.

If you breed those back to the original non-barred rooster, you've got no barring in the girls left, so all sex linking is lost.

If you take your single barred males from that generation and breed them back to a single barred female, you get double barred males (50% of the time ETA) and single barred females and single barred males. It takes a couple of generations to cull out those that look ambiguous or have the single barring, but keeping to that line will give you auto sexing....ability to see male/female at hatch from head dot/chick down color alone.

And yes base color of the rooster really plays into the matching. A light colored rooster will hide that head dot, or sometimes wheaten simply creeps in from a throw back (being recessive)...and you get this really cute chick that you can't tell what it is until it grows up.

Lots of fun making your own sex links and auto sexing lines. Always use your strongest, healthiest, and clearest marked birds for breeding forward.

Do be aware that you can breed out the coloring of eggs if you don't pay attention as you are using EE's which often have only 1 blue shell gene of the 2 possible.

Your CL hen will have 2 blue genes x your 1 blue gene rooster. The hens are easy to tell shell color because they lay, however you can't tell what's under the hood of the rooster until you test breed.

Using statistical math, with the CL/EE crossing folllowing for blue eggs (as you don't want to breed out the blue coloring) you get 50% will have 2 blue genes and 50% will have only 1 blue gene in the offspring...while choosing for autosexing, you also need to choose for egg color so that you don't end up breeding a 1 blue gene to a 1 blue gene which ends up with 25% 2 blue genes, 50% 1 blue gene, 25% no blue gene.

Have fun with your blue egg layers and sex linking.
LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Ooops...did that math in my head too quickly.

Single barred male (CL/EE) mated to a single barred (CL) hen will give you....drum roll....
25% double barred males
25% single barred males
25% single barred females
25% no barred females

You then have to cull the single barred males and no barred females to get to a pattern of breeding a single barred female to a double barred male to always end up with auto sexed chicks....and yes chipmunk down makes it much easier to tell, which also adds to the culling (removal from breeding/hatching).

LofMc

 

[wortham]

Wow. Thank y'all so much. I've got to do more studying on the barring and genetics. Is there a breed of hen that would work to breed to a ccl rooster to have sex link chicks? I'll figure this all out eventually. Just figured I would share my curiosities out loud for others too. Lol

 

[Lady of McCamley]

No. Not consistently. You'd have to breed a CL single barred hen to a CL double bar rooster. That way you get chipmunk based chicks with single vs double barring.
I've never tried a Dominique or Barred Rock pullet, which are single barred, but the black base would give all chicks a black base rather than a chipmunk. It would be size of head dot which is trickier to judge.

Pure barred roosters have double barring that is attached to the Z chromosome.

Since the rooster always gives a barred Z, either one, to his offspring, all offspring are barred, both genders.

So any solid colored hen won't help other than changing the base color of the offspring...to my knowledge.

 

[wortham]

Ok. I was hoping to find a good job for a couple of ccl roosters that would be more productive. I guess I can use them to cross and get olive eggers anyway. Some of the isa browns I have are laying very dark brown eggs. May try crossing them too. So many possibilities. Thank you Lady of McCamley

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I have personally had great luck crossing the RSL/Isa dark layers to my Barnevelder roo to produce dark layer daughters. I get a really lovely terra cotta shade.

That red base bred to the CL rooster, in a couple of generations of line breeding, will get you to auto sexing CL too.

LofMc

 

[The Moonshiner]

The

Wow. Thank y'all so much. I've got to do more studying on the barring and genetics. Is there a breed of hen that would work to breed to a ccl rooster to have sex link chicks? I'll figure this all out eventually. Just figured I would share my curiosities out loud for others too. Lol

Since you're diving into sex linking might as well dive into the deep end.
Sure you can use a CCL rooster for sex links.
We're gonna go completely sideways now and get into another sex link.
Gold versus silver.
All chickens are either gold based or silver based. For the most part gold based birds are gold/buff/red etc. Silver based do not have any of those colors.
Some examples of same pattern in silver versus gold.
Silver laced are silver. Gold laced are gold.
Columbian are silver. Buff Columbian are gold.
Silver penciled are silver. Partridge is gold.
Silver duckwing is silver. Gold duckwing is gold.
Lets use the duckwing since CCL are gold duckwing.
Females can only carry one gene for gold or silver. They carry one or the other and what they carry is what they are.
They only get that gene from their father and only pass it to their sons.
Males have two spots and get one gene from each parent. They can have two silver genes, two gold genes or one of each. Silver is dominate to gold so if he has one of each he will show as silver but carry the gold sight unseen as a recessive gene.
That's the theory. Truth from experience is that males that carry both do not look completely silver as they age. Where gold is say buff and silver is white an male with both genes will be yellowish so mostly like silver but a hint of the gold showing.
Back to subject.
Cross your CCL gold duckwing with a silver duckwing.
All pullets will get gold from father and be gold duckwing.
Cockerels will get gold from father and silver from mother. Silver is dominate so as chicks they hatch looking silver and the pullets hatch as gold so you can tell at hatch which is which. Sex link.
You can cross many gold based breeds to many silver based breeds and get sex links.
If you have the same breed with the same pattern but in both gold and silver you can breed back and forth and besides cockerels that get both genes the other chicks will be color pure and breed color true.
That's the short version. Its a bit more but that's the jest of gold/silver sex links.

 

[GaryDean26]

What color is your ameraucana cockerel? If he is not a pure barred variety then the offspring will not be auto-sexing but like others said you can make sexlinks if you have the right colored cockerel. You make be able to sex-link them by both shank color and and barring.