Cool, thank you all.

It looks like we'll be studying sex linking chickens together...

I've been having such good luck with breeding hybrid American Bulladors, based on nothing but obscure book knowledge, I decided to try my hand at chickens.

I ordered my chickens last month, but the money order was destroyed in the mail and while I'm waiting for them to refund my money, so I can buy the chicks...

I decided to study my investment better.

So far I have 15 straight run silkies towards my goal. They're about two weeks old. I also have an old hen who's raising a Plymouth/red sex-link that she hatched from a neighbors egg, to protect my silkies. He's about a month old.

It looks like I won't have much to post for awhile, but I'll try to keep checking back; and hopefully someone here will know more about it than I do, or be interested in learning from my mistakes. lol

Aloha everybody.
 
Nice.

I really like my Silkies. They're so sweet, and I read they're great eats.
I have a very nice hen keeping them warm right now. I don't know what breed she is, but whenever she's not helping me raise chicks, she gives me an egg almost every day. Ironically, the sex linked chick is the most friendly bird I have; and he's always the first one in my hand for treats. He even likes me to rest my hand on him.

I started planning my breeding with Bresses, but I don't know if I can actually kill or eat a chicken I raised...

I might need a good recipe for pickled eggs.
 
Here's a couple copy pastes from Wikipedia, discussing sex linked chickens. First, the colored sex link...




Sex-link types
Many common varieties are known as the black sex-link (also called black stars) and the red sex-link (also called red stars).[2] More specific variety names are common as well.

  • Black sex-link like "Black rocks" are a cross between unique specially bred hybrid strains of Rhode Island Redrooster (but any non-white and non barred rooster may be used for other black sex-link crosses) and a Barred Rock hen (which carry both extended black and barring genes).
  • Red sex-links are a cross between a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster and a White Rock (This variety pair is known as a Golden Comet), Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White, or Delaware hen.
One example of a red-linked breed is the Red Shaver, and ISA Brown sex-links are found in Canada.[3]

White birds should not be used in sex-linked crosses because white color allele is sometimes dominant and sometimes recessive.[4
 

Dwarfism due to the sex-linked recessive gene dw. Comparative size of two full-sib roosters. Left: Normal sibling (genotype Dw/dw). Right: Dwarf sibling (genotype dw/dw).
Dwarfism in chickens is an inherited condition found in chickens consisting of a significant delayed growth, resulting in adult individuals with a distinctive small size in comparison with normal specimens of the same breed or population.

The affected birds show no signs of dwarfism in the first weeks of age.[1]Differences in size due to dwarfism appear slow and progressively along the growing stage. Poultry breeders begin to distinguish gradually dwarfs from normal birds by their shortest shanks and smallest body size.[2][3] Depending on the breed, most types of dwarfism in chickens begin to be recognized when the birds reach 8–10 weeks of age,[4][5]but classification is more precise when the chickens are five months old or more. At this point differences between normal and dwarf sibs is evident in all males and in 98% of the females.[1]Dwarfs chickens reach sexual maturity and reproduce normally.

Dwarfism in chickens has been found to be controlled by several simple genetic factors. Some types are autosomicwhile others are sex-linked, but when poultry breeders make reference to 'dwarf chickens' they usually refer implicitly to sex-linked recessive dwarfism due to the recessive gene dw, located on the Z chromosome.

As sex-linked dwarf broiler breeder hens can bring about normal sized broiler chickens, sex-linked recessive dwarfism found application in poultry industry since the last decades of the 20th century.

These hens require less food and less housing space. Their feed intake do not need to be restricted. They also have more tolerance to heat (see: Advantages...). So the use of sex-linked dwarf broiler female parent stocks helps to save costs and to improve animal welfare and economic efficiency in European broiler industry (see: Use of...). But in spite of the proven advantages of raising dwarf breeder hens, their use is not generalized in broiler industry.


Autosomal types of dwarfism

Sex-linked dwarfismEdit

In birds, female is the heterogametic sex, that is, it has one Z and one Wsexual chromosome (genotype ZW), while male (the homogametic sex) carries two Z chromosomes (genotype ZZ). Thus, reciprocal crosses between normal and dwarf specimens may give rather different results.

Sex-linked recessive dwarfism, dwEdit
Hutt studied in the 1940s a remarkable type of dwarfism caused by only one sex-linked recessive gene to which he assigned the symbol dw.[1]

This mutation reduces body weight in females by 26 to 32%, but the effect is still greater in homozygous males, by about 42-43%. Chicks are normal size.[12][13] This is the best studied type of dwarfism in chickens. Sex-linked dwarfism in meat type breeds are first recognized by the shortening of the shanks than by the lowering body weight in the rearing period[14]

There are no signs of sex-linked dwarfism in the first weeks of age. Some individuals can be identified as dwarfs at 8–10 weeks of age, but classification is more precise when the chickens are five months old or more. At this point differences between normal and dwarf sibs is evident in all males and in 98% of the females.[1] These dwarfs reach sexual maturity and reproduce normally.

Normal females are always of genotype Dw/-, while dwarf females are always of genotype dw/-, because female is the heterogametic sex having only one Zchromosome. That is, females carrying a sex-linked gene of dwarfism are always pure and exhibit the trait. On the other hand, normal males may be either homozygous Dw/Dw or heterozygous Dw/dw, but dwarf males are always homozygous dw/dw.

Double dose of dwarf gene causes the dwarfism to be much more evident in males than in females. The above picture illustrates the comparative size of two full-sib roosters born the same day: Left: Normal sibling of genotype Dw/dw. Right: Dwarf sibling of genotype dw/dw.
 
Above is posted from Wikipedia on dwarf sex linking...

With a dwarf sex link, we can keep about twice as many hens with the same feed ratio.

By adding a color sex link to your dwarf sex link we can tell which birds will eat twice as much and need more space from day one.
 

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