Is my starlight chicken a rooster?

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I have 2 SGE and one looks like a rooster also! It's comb and wattle are much more developed than the other one. It is starting to get green tail feathers while the other one is not. This morning it made a God awful sound like it was trying to crow haha

Cute. How many weeks? I wonder if they may be harder to sex this year or something.

 

[FunClucks]

I saw a bin of UNSEXED Starlight Green Eggers at the local TSC. Grrrrrr!!! The only reason anyone wants these is because the hens lay green eggs. We DON'T want the roosters! Especially because they're a mix/hybrid, and won't breed true. If they'd sold sexed pullets I might've picked up a few. But I've reached my quota of roosters for my space.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I saw a bin of UNSEXED Starlight Green Eggers at the local TSC. Grrrrrr!!! The only reason anyone wants these is because the hens lay green eggs. We DON'T want the roosters! Especially because they're a mix/hybrid, and won't breed true. If they'd sold sexed pullets I might've picked up a few. But I've reached my quota of roosters for my space.

Oh my gosh!!! That is ridiculous!!! That even moreso makes me seriously wonder if they have just having too many vent sexing issues with them that they just gave up and said, Here! You get what you get lol

I feel this so much. I'm a bit frustrated, too, because I wanted to get an SOP Australorp cockerel this year, and I wanted to get straight run BCMs which I figured I might end up with a cockerel as well. Who serves a purpose. But now instead I have an SGE cockerel and possibly a SLW cockerel and.... No more room. At least the SLW I can make SLW chicks, but I could also just buy more pullets and skip a step there, so neither one is really what I was aiming at.

 

[bmaxim13]

Cute. How many weeks? I wonder if they may be harder to sex this year or something.

They will be 6 weeks 5/25. There was a bin of straight run SGE but these two came out of the sexed bin...I'm guessing someone messed up haha.

 

[bmaxim13]

I saw a bin of UNSEXED Starlight Green Eggers at the local TSC. Grrrrrr!!! The only reason anyone wants these is because the hens lay green eggs. We DON'T want the roosters! Especially because they're a mix/hybrid, and won't breed true. If they'd sold sexed pullets I might've picked up a few. But I've reached my quota of roosters for my space.

They had a bin of sexed and straight run at the one I went to....someone must have messed up and threw this one back in the wrong bin.

 

[bterry53]

I have 2 SGE and one looks like a rooster also! It's comb and wattle are much more developed than the other one. It is starting to get green tail feathers while the other one is not. This morning it made a God awful sound like it was trying to crow haha

it looks just like my starlight green egger rooster

 

[808mom_of10]

I have three starlight green eggers. Two of my girls have similar coloring and sized combs. My third starlight, Coconut, has white brown splash(?) coloring and a much larger comb. Coconut is also much more likely to square up against the other chickens but overall has a great temperament. They’re about 6 or 7 weeks old from TSC where they were straight run pullets. Based on images we’ve seen, we can’t figure out if Coconut is actually a rooster. Thoughts?

I got 5 SEE View attachment 3529317from TSC, too, last month. I think Coconut is a rooster! Here is a photo of my 5 (theyre in quarantine right now), and of my Roo Boy.

The SGE hens (and rooster) are straight comb layers with a blue egg gene and brown egg gene(s). [There's more than one set of genes that contributes to brown eggs, but I'm simplifying to try and explain] You will not know if the hens truly inherited the blue egg gene and therefore will lay green eggs until they actually lay (might lay tan - this happened to me). For roosters, you can't tell if he has both blue and brown or just one type of gene. If he has both, only 50% of the chicks will inherit the blue egg gene - this would combine with the mother's genes to give progeny egg color.

To know what genes your rooster has, you'd have to either get him tested (they can test blood and feathers for this, it's about $20 USD), or you'd have to do a test mating to a known color egg layer, like a brown or white egg layer, and raise a significant number of chicks. From the colors the daughters would lay after maturity, you could probably figure out what genes the parent rooster has. This takes a long time and is costly in feed and space.

Long story short, SGEs don't breed true, but if you feel like trying it, you could probably breed some green or olive layers depending on what hens you use and IF your rooster has the blue egg gene and passes it on. Only about 50% would be colored layers at the most (estimating here). The Genetics Forum is a good place to look around if you're interested in learning more - I'm not an expert on this topic but have done a similar cross myself.

Aloha, I got 3 SGE's from TSC last month, and 1 is a rooster. What if I breed them together? I know Hybrids do not breed true, but I don't hear anyone asking, what if we breed the SGE's together? Will we get more or maybe a 50/50 split of SGE's, or will we get Praire Blues and whatever brown egg layer Hoover's used? Thanks!

 

[808mom_of10]

I have three starlight green eggers. Two of my girls have similar coloring and sized combs. My third starlight, Coconut, has white brown splash(?) coloring and a much larger comb. Coconut is also much more likely to square up against the other chickens but overall has a great temperament. They’re about 6 or 7 weeks old from TSC where they were straight run pullets. Based on images we’ve seen, we can’t figure out if Coconut is actually a rooster. Thoughts?

Sorry! my last post didn't include the photos. I got 5 SGE's, and one is defintely a rooster. I think Coconut is, too! Roo Boy is bigger and much lighter than the others, with a more developed comb and wattle.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

I got 5 SEE View attachment 3529317from TSC, too, last month. I think Coconut is a rooster! Here is a photo of my 5 (theyre in quarantine right now), and of my Roo Boy.

Aloha, I got 3 SGE's from TSC last month, and 1 is a rooster. What if I breed them together? I know Hybrids do not breed true, but I don't hear anyone asking, what if we breed the SGE's together? Will we get more or maybe a 50/50 split of SGE's, or will we get Praire Blues and whatever brown egg layer Hoover's used? Thanks!

So, I'm no expert, but what I do know definitely won't happen is reverting back to whatever they use to make the hybrid, or to Prairie Bluebell Eggers, because I'm sure that's not how they are bred. But, IF your cockerel has the blue and brown genes, and you were to breed him back over the green laying SGEs, you should have a chance at blue, green, and brown eggs, possibly 25/50/25, but that's only a guess. IF he's carrying blue/tan genes, you would stand a better chance putting him over a "true blue" hen, or vice versa, a Welsummer or "true blue" rooster over the green laying hens, but if you put him over a true blue, those chicks should all carry blue - some laying blue, and some laying green. Or you could test him over the Welsummers and hypothetically you would know IF he's carrying blue because half should lay olive speckles, and half would lay brown speckles. I have no idea how many chicks you would have to hatch out (and grow out, and wait for them to lay) before you knew if your experiment had worked.

So if you are someone who doesn't mind to wait and see what you get, and doesn't mind having more brown layers in the mix, it would be fine to try! But if you are looking for more predictable colored layers, there are definitely more straightforward ways to go about it.

On a side note, even blue layers at times can carry recessive white, so you would need to know you were using a "true blue" bird to get blue and greens, otherwise bB x bw would get you the mix of blue bb, blue bw, green bB, and brown Bw but you would have no way of knowing which blue layers were still carrying the recessive white and which were true blue. Vs. bB x bb gets you only blue bb and green bB.

ETA Personally, I would maybe stand a better chance of putting him with my Welsummer hens to get some olive eggers. But they would definitely not all lay olive, and there's a chance none would. The ones who lay brown should still have speckles, but wouldn't be Welsummers anymore, so it would remain to be seen how useful they might be, to still put with a blue, or cross back with the SGE daddy rooster and maybe get another 50/50 chance of getting green speckles again. All for funzies lol

EATA Already I might see a correction based on this chart below, because it says they always pass on the overlay, as in a green and a green will not ever get back to blue... :/

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]