Genetics/Origin of feather sexed birds

[jmc]

I know the pullets are distinguishable at hatch from the cockerels...........so f-sexing is partly convenience oriented for 'non orientals', let us say.........

Some say that f-sexed birds are smaller, others say that is not necess. true at all.

i have seen alot of sort of small feather sexed birds. these are rir s i have now that are 9 wks old. Some looked like completely feathered 'quail' at about 3 weeks old. alot had long tails really early on, and many are rather slight

i wonder how f-sexed birds are 'made'?

Sorry for vague question, but i just wonder about the smaller size and i refuse to believe that all f-sexed birds are part leghorn............

thoughts

 

[Henk69]

rapid feathering is the recessive.

 

[jmc]

.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
I read a lot online. Some of it is true.

Rapid sexing is recessive and the gene is sex linked. The mother gives it to her son but not her daughter. The females have only one copy of the gene. The males have two copies.

The rooster has two rapid feathering genes. He gives one copy to all his sons and all his daughters. The hen has one slow feathering gene. She give sit to her sons but not her daughters.

The sons wind up one slow-one rapid. Slow feathering is dominant so the males are slow feathering.

The daughters get on one rapid from their father. They are rapid feathering.

Tadkerson's first post explains this pretty well and tells you some of the breeds that can be used to make feather sexed chicks if the genetics are true.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

 

[jmc]

.

 

[Henk69]

Still you do it again...

Normal = rapid feathering is the recessive.
Slow feathering (= the mutant gene) is the dominant.

 

[jmc]

my main question now is that it seems that any feather sexed pullet is a hybrid, according to Tadkerson's chart referenced in above post.

i was told i was getting rir or prod rir (not SQ of course) but since at least some of the pullets are feather sexed, these girls must be hybrids.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are right, at least to a certain degree. Any time you make a sex linked bird, whether red sex link, black sex link, or feather sexed, you have finished with the sex linking with those birds, whether pullet or rooster.

This is where it gets complicated with feather sexing. You can breed in fast or slow feathering to a breed and in a few generations of proper culling, get back to a line of birds that are considered purebreed, yet they have the opposite fast-slow feathering than you would expect. So if you keep that line separate from the "regular" line of birds, you can get purebred feather sexed birds. So it is theoretically possible. But the feather sexed pullet herself cannot be used to get feather sexed offspring, whether they are pure or hybrid.

I hope that made sense.

And this is where I get confused. I don't know if this fast feathering gene that allows newly hatched chicks is the same fast feathering gene that gives the crisp barring to a barred rock while the slow feathering gene gives he mumbled barring of the Dominique. This stuff gets complicated real fast. There are a whole lot of genes that interact in many different ways depending on which ones are present.

 

[Henk69]

It is the slow feathering gene that makes the crisp barring.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks for the information. I thought it might be the same gene, but everytime I make assumptions, I am wrong. At least now I know.