If you were looking to produce sex links...

[Krys109uk]

How about a using cuckoo marans & welsumers for a project to make a dark egg laying autosexing breed?

 

[ke_ben]

Quote:

Sorry, I've been out of town. Yes to your question though.

halo-if you want good egg layers I recommend getting some Red Stars. My wife has some and they lay the largest eggs we get, almost a purple color in my avatar, and are the smallest hens. They say that the feed to egg ratio for them is the best and they lay all year long. If you want to produce your own you would need a red rooster (RIR, NHR, etc) and white silver-gened hens (RIW, delaware, some white rock & leghorns). I think that hers came from Murray but not sure.

 

[kathyinmo]

Holy Cow ..... how do you guys learn all of this? Did you have to go to, "poultry college?" What books contain all this information? I am college educated, and have no idea what you are talking about.

Actually, I came to this topic to ask a question, which I still have not posted. Maybe you can tell me the answer .... What is, "well vaulted?" I think it was in reference to a Silkie chicken, but maybe it means something in general???

Thanks, Kathy

 

[redhen]

Quote:
good idea!

 

[Kim_NC]

If you use a barred hen (BR or Cuckoo), then your females will mostly be black with a couple exceptions depending on the roo.

We make these crosses for sexlinks. There would be other options, these are just based on crosses of the pure breeds we have.

Blue Ameraucana roo X BR hen - Male chicks are barred blue or barred black w/white blotch on the head, female chicks are solid blue or solid black. Females lay green eggs.

Blk Australorp roo X BR hen - male chicks are barred w/white blotch on the head, female chicks are black.

RIR roo X BR hen - male chicks are barred w/white blotch on the head, female chicks are black. Females have reddish feathers in breast when older.

Delaware roo X BR hen - male chicks are barred w/white blotch on the head, female chicks are black.

RIR roo x Delaware hen - male chicks are yellow, females are reddish.

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
Vaulted skull occurs in silkies. The skull is high and OPEN at hatch, think fontanel. Those chicks are VERY vunerable as they grow til the skull develops and hardens.

You learn this stuff by being addicted to chickens... And from long exposure to this site.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~h.meijers69/kruising.html

Don't be intimidated - just play with it til you figure it out. Then you'll go slightly nuts playing with color genetics but you'll fit in here nicely.

 

[chickenbottom]

what about a brown leghorn roo with a barred rock hen or with white leghorns or even a black australorp or ee hen?

 

[walkswithdog]

Black birds pose problems in sex linking. With many colors and patterns the end result is always all black.

If I were doing sex links I'd do gold birchen to something, or wheaten. But I wouldn't do the typical breeds just because it's been done to death. I prefer to work with breeds that are different. Marans, Dels, Ameraucana and then play sex link games.

But I'm like that - I also made my own incubators. Not looking for what's been done before. That would be cheating LOL.

 

[Krys109uk]

what about a brown leghorn roo with a barred rock hen or with white leghorns or even a black australorp or ee hen?

Most of those wouldn't work.

Brown Leghorn would only work with Barred Rock & again the offspring would be the black barred & non barred.

First croses from white leghorns do not work for any plumage colour sex links.​

 

[Promiselandfarm]

So if you do a BC over a BR then take those offspring and breed them back to another BC wonder if you will get an offspring that lays a nice dark egg. I know it most likely not be like the BC but wondering how dark they would be. Would the leg feathering from the first BC transfer to the offspring or will it be a hit and miss?