Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since I've been on here but it's hard to be here when I don't have any birds anymore. The good news is that I got married last weekend and we are looking at moving out of the the apartment and back to a place in the country where we can have chickens again. This is where my genetics question comes in. I would like to have some hens that produce sex-linked chicks that I can then sell as pullets. When I've crossed a black orpington rooster on speckled Sussex hens, the chicks have been sex-linked. My wife is a big fan of anconas and I have heard that the same gene that makes speckled Sussex speckled gives the ancona it's pattern. Can anyone verify this for me? It would be nice to have a flock of speckled Sussex, barred rock, and anconas and put a black or blue orpington rooster over them for sex-linked chicks. Thanks for any help you may be able to give me.
Umm, Black x female Speckled Sussex does not create sex linking. Anconas and Sex Links only have the similarity of mottling though, which isn't sex linked. If you want to create sex linked offspring, the key is to either have a female with a silver gene and male without or a female with barring and the male without.
Yes mottling is the gene responsible for the spotting in both Speckled Sussex and Mottled Anconas, SS are mottled red columbian and Anconas are mottled black. BUT Its not a sexlinked gene, its recessive and you shouldnt get sexlinks from that cross. Can you please elaborate as to what the differences were that you were seeing in the sexes ?
I will go back and find my posts about it with pics from last year. I was trying to create a jubilee orpington and started by crossing speckled Sussex and black orpington. I was not expecting sex-linked chicks but all pullets from the crossing were distinguishable from the cockerels. I didn't know for sure until they were older of course. Thanks for your advice about the mottling gene.
Pardon me. My memory failed me. It was cuckoo marans with a black orpington Rooster that caused the sex-linked chicks. Sorry about the confusion.
Hey, Jared!!! Great to see you here again. Congrats on your marriage and welcome back to the world of chickens! Any barred hen with a red or gold rooster (or others) will work. I've even had Silver Phoenix roo over BR hens produce sexlinked offspring. Males were barred like a BR pullet and female was solid black.
Thank you Cynthia! I am wondering if you will have barred rock eggs available this spring. If I can get some more orps and have barred rock hens then I can meet local demand for sex-links using a breed of rooster I'm fond of.
