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This past spring we let a hen sit on 8 eggs and three of them hatched and we now know that the are all roosters. The only reason we only have two left is, because we had them free ranging one afternoon and a coyote snuck into our yard and killed four of my precious chickens. The four chickens that were killed were my old rooster Roy, one of my hens named Marcia, another one of my hens named Sally, and one of my chicks named Patrick (he hatched on St. Patrick's Day). The two surviving chicks are George and Patricia. Now that we know that Patricia is not a hen, we are searching for a new name. We are thinking about Charles so they can be King George and King Charles. What do you guys think? My only question is how is "Charles" a rooster if he is brown like the hens and not white like his brother and his father. The only reason I think he is a rooster is because he started breeding last week and is way past 16 weeks which is when RSLs should start laying eggs. Can anyone explain this?




P.S. I named Roy and Marcia after my grandparents and they both miss my chickens very much.
 
Welcome to BYC!
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We're glad to have you.
 
The girls are brown and the boys are white in color with Red Sex Links holds true only in the first generation cross where the parents are picked to give you that result in the chicks, if you breed RSLs back to each other either sex can turn out either color. Here is a good thread on breeding Sex Links https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/261208/sex-linked-information
 
Toots Birds said:
Now that we know that Patricia is not a hen, we are searching for a new name. We are thinking about Charles so they can be King George and King Charles. What do you guys think? My only question is how is "Charles" a rooster if he is brown like the hens and not white like his brother and his father. The only reason I think he is a rooster is because he started breeding last week and is way past 16 weeks which is when RSLs should start laying eggs. Can anyone explain this?
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Charles would be a good name in keeping with the king theme. My granddaughter names all our hens after Disney princesses. If your birds are Red Sex Links, including Charles, his sex should be easy to identify by color. Red Sex Link hens are reddish with white underfluff and Red Sex Link roosters are white with some reddish feathers in the saddle area. Either he is actually a hen with some abnormal behavior, or else he is not a Red Sex Link. There are no other possible explanations. If you can post a pic of Charles, we should be able to determine which is the case.
 
Kelsie2290 said:
The girls are brown and the boys are white in color with Red Sex Links holds true only in the first generation cross where the parents are picked to give you that result in the chicks, if you breed RSLs back to each other either sex can turn out either color. Here is a good thread on breeding Sex Links https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/261208/sex-linked-information
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I was putting up my post when Kelsie2290 posted hers so I didn't have a chance to read it before posting, but she is right, and it goes along with what I was saying. If Charles is second generation, produced by breeding two Red Sex Links together, then he is no longer a RSL as RSLs do not breed true. RSLs are a first generation cross between a red gene rooster and a silver gene hen. Any succeeding generations bred from them are no longer RSLs, and their color doesn't mean a thing as far as gender is concerned.
 
Thank you all very much!!
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That definitely confirms our theory of my brownish-blackish RSL being a rooster. No more roosters for us!
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George is definitely more dominant than Charles. George gets seven hens; Charles gets one.
 

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