Cuckoo and Wheaten had babies

[iowena]

Hi I am pretty new here. I have 3 Wheaten (2 roos and 1 hen), and 5 silver cuckoo hens. One of my silver hens went missing, we thought we had lost her as they free range on 17 acres during the day. She showed up this morning with 10 babies, I am assuming that the Wheaten roo is the father. Are there any genetic anomalies or things that I need to watch for? I did not get these to breed, just wanted the wonderful Marans eggs.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

They are sex linked. The chicks with white dots on their heads will be males. Will grow to be cuckoo pattern. Females will stay black.

 

[iowena]

Cool!

 

[iowena]

Sorry for the short reply earlier! I was so excited I had to run out and check... I see a white dot on one chicks head, most of them look silver with specks of brown, one is pure black.... I will just wait and see what happens as they mature! Thanks for your response.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

So you see and look close as it's only one barring genetic that is making this happen so any silver tops (hints of/splash white) will be males. If you've a way to get rid of them or at least put in seperate brooders you'll see that the sex was determined by head spot due to cuckoo mother.

 

[donrae]

Congratulations on your chicks!

There aren't any abnormalities you need to worry about, unless you have problems with the parent stock. Just crossing the two colors won't cause any issues. As stated, you have the bonus of having sex linked chicks! The only issue is if the down color is dark enough to be able to see the spot on the head--sometimes with lighter (not black) birds the spot can be difficult to see.

 

[iowena]

Thanks! So the only difference in these two Marans is color?

I know that the Cuckoo hens eggs are lighter and speckled. My Wheaten hen has a fairly dark brown egg. In my previous post I said that 1 had a dot, but we have now found 3 with dots, one that is really black and the other 6 are a dark grey with some brown speckling on the wing feathers no dots on the head. With it being winter and my girls being inconsistent with laying we are not sure who has been laying and who hasn't.... My husband thinks that some of the chicks could be from my barnyard mutts (Americauna, Cochin, Austurlop(? on spelling). He thinks they were all laying in the hiding spot that the Cuckoo hatched. I am currently looking for that spot as we do not want another happy accident! Thanks for all the help! You guys are awesome.