I need a little advice please

[WILIFORD]

My 6 year old grand daughter named one of the cockerels Terry. I asked her why did you name him Terry. She said his full name is Terry Dactyl. She loves dinosaurs, go figure. But her and her brothers already named the 6 cockerel's

 

[aart]

When I got home last night, I had no new hatchlings, so I candled the remaining 16 eggs. I didn't see anything promising. All of them had a nice air cell, but the shadows I could see, seemed smaller than what I would expect, and I could not see any movement. I'm going to let them go another day or two. But I think the 14 I have are probably all I'm going to get. These eggs are pretty difficult to candle. Not only are they brown eggs, but Dominique eggs have a very thick shell compared to my other chickens I've had.

Eggtopsties might be worthwhile to perform...see if and/or how far they developed before quitting. Not a fun task, but can be enlightening.

I would have like to had more success for my first hatch, but my main reason for doing this is I wanted 3 roosters for my flock, and I could not find Dominique roosters in California. So when I wing sexed them last night I had 6 roosters, which my grand kids already named, and 8 pullets, which my neighbor is going to buy them from me.

Not many chicks can be successfully wing sexed, takes a certain cross.
I don't know much about it, will be interesting to see if your guesses are correct in about 4-6 weeks when comb/wattle size/color will tell the tale on the males.

 

[WILIFORD]

Eggtopsties might be worthwhile to perform...see if and/or how far they developed before quitting. Not a fun task, but can be enlightening.

Not many chicks can be successfully wing sexed, takes a certain cross.
I don't know much about it, will be interesting to see if your guesses are correct in about 4-6 weeks when comb/wattle size/color will tell the tale on the males.

I did do an eggtopsy on one. It had started developing, but looked like it probably drop out somewhere between 5 to 10 days. I need to see if I can find a chart that I can match what I see to, then I could have a more precise timeline of where things went wrong

 

[WILIFORD]

I kind of wonder how much the shipping across the country might have played into this. I live in California and these eggs were shipped from No. Carolina. The good thing is I got my roosters now. So next year I want to do this again with my own eggs, and see if I have more success.

 

[Ridgerunner]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/eggtopsy-what-happened-to-my-egg-graphic-pictures.363717/

 

[WILIFORD]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/eggtopsy-what-happened-to-my-egg-graphic-pictures.363717/

Thank you. I am reviewing this now. It is just what I needed

 

[Ridgerunner]

Dominique are barred chickens and barring is a sex linked gene. That means the males have two barred genes at that gene pair and the females only have one copy of that gene. That gives you two ways two help sex the chicks.

The barring causes a spot on the head at hatch. That's why you can use barred hens to make black sex links when bred to a non-barred rooster. But since both the boys and girl Dominique are barred it gets more complicated. The two barred genes the boys have make a larger spot that the girls have. It's not always easy to see and it certainly takes practice. It's more visible right at hatch than later. Several years back someone had a thread with photos explaining how to do that but I lost the link. It sounds like something either @cmom or @speckledhen would do. If I remember correctly that was with Barred Rocks, but the principle is the same with Dominique.

The other way is when they feather out. There is a difference in color between boys and girls. The two genes the boys have cause them to look lighter than the girls that only have one copy of that gene. Of course you have to wait until they feather out to see that difference.

Hopefully you know which you think are boys and which you think are girls. I'd be interesting to get feedback as to how well your feather sexing worked. The type of feather sexing I'm familiar with depends on the father having the recessive fast feathering gene and the mother having the dominant slow feathering gene. Both male and female Dominiques as a breed have the fast feathering gene, that's what makes their barred pattern scattered and random, called cuckoo, as opposed to the crisp clean barring you should get with a Barred Rock. Barred Rock as a breed have the slow feathering gene which allows the barring to come in crisp an clean.

In some ways that is a disappointing hatch but even hatches with my own eggs aren't always great. Each hatch is different. Considering they were shipped eggs it's not a horrible hatch. I've had worse with shipped eggs.

 

[speckledhen]

Sexing barred varieties is the same, no matter Doms or BRs. It is an art, not a science and some chicks can have confusing traits, some lines of BRs are easier to sex than others, etc. But, the gist of it is you take three traits together to sex a newly hatched, fluffed out chick.

1) head spot...males have a more scattered, sometimes larger head spot with "frosting" around the back of the head. Females have a more defined head spot, can be tiny or larger, but it is more contained and no "frosting".
2) Down color...males are grayish, faded black. Females are just black-black, darker.
3) Leg color...males have either no dark wash color down the leg or it's just sketchy. Females usually have dark wash down the leg fronts and into the toes.

Taken together you can make an educated guess on the sex of a barred chick, IF it's a pure one. A barred chick can come from a sire that is barred because he passes his barring to all his progeny and a non-barred hen. Hens pass one barring gene to sons and nothing to daughters, however, if the hen is not barred, she will not pass to either, but you'll get a barred chick from a barred sire, but you won't be able to reliably sex that chick. I hope this makes sense. A barring gene can't be completely hidden. I once had a Blue Orpington who carried a barring gene, probably from ancestry of a Barred Rock/Blue Rock that they at one time used in the Blue Orp lines, long story, and you could not tell except by his sickle feathers. I never really noticed it until he and a Buff Orp/RIR cross hen produced a completely barred chick. Shocked the heck out of me and I finally saw those bars.

 

[MGG]

When I got home last night, I had no new hatchlings, so I candled the remaining 16 eggs. I didn't see anything promising. All of them had a nice air cell, but the shadows I could see, seemed smaller than what I would expect, and I could not see any movement. I'm going to let them go another day or two. But I think the 14 I have are probably all I'm going to get. These eggs are pretty difficult to candle. Not only are they brown eggs, but Dominique eggs have a very thick shell compared to my other chickens I've had.

That's too bad. Definitely leave some of them in there for a few more days just in case though.
I'm glad you got some!!!

I would have like to had more success for my first hatch, but my main reason for doing this is I wanted 3 roosters for my flock, and I could not find Dominique roosters in California. So when I wing sexed them last night I had 6 roosters, which my grand kids already named, and 8 pullets, which my neighbor is going to buy them from me.

Congrats!!!

My 6 year old grand daughter named one of the cockerels Terry. I asked her why did you name him Terry. She said his full name is Terry Dactyl. She loves dinosaurs, go figure. But her and her brothers already named the 6 cockerel's

Awwww!!!!!

 

[WILIFORD]

Dominique are barred chickens and barring is a sex linked gene. That means the males have two barred genes at that gene pair and the females only have one copy of that gene. That gives you two ways two help sex the chicks.

The barring causes a spot on the head at hatch. That's why you can use barred hens to make black sex links when bred to a non-barred rooster. But since both the boys and girl Dominique are barred it gets more complicated. The two barred genes the boys have make a larger spot that the girls have. It's not always easy to see and it certainly takes practice. It's more visible right at hatch than later. Several years back someone had a thread with photos explaining how to do that but I lost the link. It sounds like something either @cmom or @speckledhen would do. If I remember correctly that was with Barred Rocks, but the principle is the same with Dominique.

The other way is when they feather out. There is a difference in color between boys and girls. The two genes the boys have cause them to look lighter than the girls that only have one copy of that gene. Of course you have to wait until they feather out to see that difference.

Hopefully you know which you think are boys and which you think are girls. I'd be interesting to get feedback as to how well your feather sexing worked. The type of feather sexing I'm familiar with depends on the father having the recessive fast feathering gene and the mother having the dominant slow feathering gene. Both male and female Dominiques as a breed have the fast feathering gene, that's what makes their barred pattern scattered and random, called cuckoo, as opposed to the crisp clean barring you should get with a Barred Rock. Barred Rock as a breed have the slow feathering gene which allows the barring to come in crisp an clean.

In some ways that is a disappointing hatch but even hatches with my own eggs aren't always great. Each hatch is different. Considering they were shipped eggs it's not a horrible hatch. I've had worse with shipped eggs.

I did mark the ones I have deemed to be roo's with leg bands for exactly that reason. I am interested to see how accurate I am. I used one other method I had seen before as well, to have a sort of secondary confirmation. I had used the head spot method before, when I got the dominiques I have now, but I didn't check these with that method because I really struggled with it last time. But now that I think about it last time they were all hens, so no wonder I struggled with it. I'll use it to double check them when I get home tonight