Do sex links breed true?

[bryan8]

Wow that's confuseing.... Thanks!

 

[walkswithdog]

Hatcheries maintain two distinct lines to create sex links. Those themselves a proprietary and thoroughly unnatural commercial genetic mix, combine them into a third kind of mutt and you get commercial sex-links.

There is no way to know what progeny of two sex links will look like - gene soup. But if you persisted and bred same looking birds from F1, and again in F2 and again in F3 constantly sorting for same looking birds, eventually you'd sort out the gene soup. You would also DRASTICALLY reduce production for which the line is bred and be better off with good purebred stock from somewhere.

Rearing six or eight generations is a ton of money, to recreate the wheel.

 

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
True so true, sex links are not really bred for looks commercial egg houses or egg farms really do not care what the birds look like. They want birds that will allot of eggs in a short span that will have a lower feed to egg conversion. The bonus is they can easily be identified by color for sex. Feather sexing is more commonly used for birds for consumption.

In the long run it is much cheaper and easier just to buy more sex links from the hatchery than to reproduce them. I myself prefer to have free ranging chickens so the feed conversion is not a issue, and enough eggs can be obtained reasonably with standard breeds. I have gamefowl, RIR, and barred rocks. The gamefowl lay consistently when not broody and would rather hunt for food than eat commercial food. BUT their eggs are not brown or large, though a nice medium. I have the RIR and the BRs for those who wish brown eggs.

Enjoy your sex links and buy more when yours slow down would be my advice. If you want to breed pick a breed or two and work with them.