Just had first hatch, trying to figure out genetics for crosses

[VRMC]

Hey everyone, I just hatched out chicks for the first time on the 4th and am trying to learn a bit more about their genetics. Specifically, I’m curious about whether or not they can be somewhat reliably feather-sexed when they hit a week old and am trying to find resources that detail the genetics of the breeds in my crosses. All chicks have the same dad, a silver phoenix rooster, but different moms: a cream legbar, splash blue Andalusian, and black Polish with a white crest. I’m thinking that they probably can’t be feather-sexed reliably because silver phoenix chickens probably have a slow feathering rate gene given that they molt so infrequently, but I’m not sure if the gene that regulates their first feathering is the same as the gene that determines feather growth rate later in life. Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Debbie292d]

Congrats!

If you want to see if anyone can feather sex them, I'd get pictures and post in the What Breed or Gender forum.

 

[VRMC]

Congrats!

If you want to see if anyone can feather sex them, I'd get pictures and post in the What Breed or Gender forum.

Thank you again! I’ll do that then (it gives me an excuse to take more photos).

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Hey everyone, I just hatched out chicks for the first time on the 4th and am trying to learn a bit more about their genetics. Specifically, I’m curious about whether or not they can be somewhat reliably feather-sexed when they hit a week old and am trying to find resources that detail the genetics of the breeds in my crosses. All chicks have the same dad, a silver phoenix rooster, but different moms: a cream legbar, splash blue Andalusian, and black Polish with a white crest. I’m thinking that they probably can’t be feather-sexed reliably because silver phoenix chickens probably have a slow feathering rate gene given that they molt so infrequently, but I’m not sure if the gene that regulates their first feathering is the same as the gene that determines feather growth rate later in life. Any advice would be appreciated!

This doesn't answer your feather sexing question, but your Silver rooster + CCL hen is a sex-link. (Might be double sex link?)

 

[NatJ]

This doesn't answer your feather sexing question, but your Silver rooster + CCL hen is a sex-link. (Might be double sex link?)

Silver Phoenix rooster with Crested Cream Legbar hen should be a barred/not-barred sexlink (sons get barring from their Legbar mother, daughters do not have any barring.)

But with the other colors and patterns involved, I don't know how obvious the barring will be. I think it would be most obvious on the big feathers of the wings and tail, so maybe look to see if there are any white lines across those.

That cross will not produce silver/gold sexlinks, because the parent colors are wrong. A gold rooster with silver hens will produce color-sexable chicks (gold daughters and silver sons), but a silver rooster with gold hens will produce silver chicks of both sexes.

If the Phoenix has slate (blue) legs, the chicks might be skin-color sexlinks. Daughters would get the darker legs (blue or green), and if the mothers have light legs (white or yellow), their sons would also have light legs. There are two main problems with this kind of sexlink: sometimes the color is not obvious until the chicks grow for a while, and sometimes the leg color can also be affected by the genes that control feather color. So sexing chicks by their leg colors is iffy at best.

Specifically, I’m curious about whether or not they can be somewhat reliably feather-sexed when they hit a week old and am trying to find resources that detail the genetics of the breeds in my crosses. All chicks have the same dad, a silver phoenix rooster, but different moms: a cream legbar, splash blue Andalusian, and black Polish with a white crest.

They probably cannot be feather-sexed.

To get feather-sexable chicks, you need the father to have the gene for fast feathering, and the mother to have the gene for slow feathering. It is unlikely that all your parent birds have the correct genes to make that work.

But you can watch the chicks to see if they feather at very different rates. If some do grow their feathers much slower than others, you can keep track of which ones they are, and that will let you know if future chicks from these crosses can be sexed by feathering. It will also tell you if feather-sexable matings will be possible from those chicks when they grow up.

I’m not sure if the gene that regulates their first feathering is the same as the gene that determines feather growth rate later in life.

Those would be different genes.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

That cross will not produce silver/gold sexlinks, because the parent colors are wrong. A gold rooster with silver hens will produce color-sexable chicks (gold daughters and silver sons), but a silver rooster with gold hens will produce silver chicks of both sexes.

Apologies, I got them mixed up
I had used a calculator to double check but that must be one of the things it doesn't work with

 

[NatJ]

Apologies, I got them mixed up
I had used a calculator to double check but that must be one of the things it doesn't work with

Assuming you are using this calculator:
https://kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html
Or one of the other variations on the same site.

When you cross a gold chicken with a silver chicken, no matter which direction you do the cross, you can get sons with one gold gene and one silver gene. When those are young they just look silver. But the calculator tends to call them "yellow" or "golden" or something of the sort, based on the white feathers having a yellowish tint when they grow up. Because they look silver as chicks, they can be distinguished from gold chicks, but not from pure-for-silver chicks, at least not when they are young enough for color sexing to be useful.

If you are trying to figure out which chicks will be color-sexable, I would say the calculator is misleading on this point.

 

[VRMC]

This doesn't answer your feather sexing question, but your Silver rooster + CCL hen is a sex-link. (Might be double sex link?)

Thank you! That’s really cool and good news because I think it means I got at least one hen.

 

[VRMC]

Silver Phoenix rooster with Crested Cream Legbar hen should be a barred/not-barred sexlink (sons get barring from their Legbar mother, daughters do not have any barring.)

But with the other colors and patterns involved, I don't know how obvious the barring will be. I think it would be most obvious on the big feathers of the wings and tail, so maybe look to see if there are any white lines across those.

That cross will not produce silver/gold sexlinks, because the parent colors are wrong. A gold rooster with silver hens will produce color-sexable chicks (gold daughters and silver sons), but a silver rooster with gold hens will produce silver chicks of both sexes.

If the Phoenix has slate (blue) legs, the chicks might be skin-color sexlinks. Daughters would get the darker legs (blue or green), and if the mothers have light legs (white or yellow), their sons would also have light legs. There are two main problems with this kind of sexlink: sometimes the color is not obvious until the chicks grow for a while, and sometimes the leg color can also be affected by the genes that control feather color. So sexing chicks by their leg colors is iffy at best.


They probably cannot be feather-sexed.

To get feather-sexable chicks, you need the father to have the gene for fast feathering, and the mother to have the gene for slow feathering. It is unlikely that all your parent birds have the correct genes to make that work.

But you can watch the chicks to see if they feather at very different rates. If some do grow their feathers much slower than others, you can keep track of which ones they are, and that will let you know if future chicks from these crosses can be sexed by feathering. It will also tell you if feather-sexable matings will be possible from those chicks when they grow up.


Those would be different genes.

Woah, thank you so much! I’m going to make a post with pictures of the chicks from when they were a week old last Friday, but I honestly don’t think I need to because you answered all of my questions! From everything you’ve said, it really sounds like at least the chick whose mom is a CCL is a female. Our rooster does have slate legs, and this chick has green legs and no barring as far as I can tell (chipmunk stripe without white head dot, not white on her wing feathers so far). She also started feathering pretty quickly, so if she is female, then I guess our rooster does have the gene for fast feathering! Thank you again!