Making own autosexing breeds??

[Silkie Amateur]

Here is how my Cream Legbar-Welsummer Olive Eggers have worked out. High degree of autosexing...
can-you-accurately-sex-day-old-olive-egger-chicks-legbar-welsummer

I select for the most auto-sexing Legbar pullets, which helps a lot with the predictability when crossing (since my Legbars have been much less consistent in appearance than Welsummers).

That’s really cool! Do you just bred a cream legbar to a Welsummer then the offspring to an olive ether?

 

[halefamily_flock]

That’s really cool! Do you just bred a cream legbar to a Welsummer then the offspring to an olive ether?

The dam was Cream Legbar Rooster over Welsummer hen, an Olive Egger F1. I actually started with OE chicks from Cackle Hatchery. I haven't created any of my own F1 yet. They were able to vent-sex the OE pullets I got from them, so I'm not sure how good the first generation is at auto-sexing.

I bred the OE F1 back to a Cream Legbar rooster. Since all of these combinations include only barred hens and roosters, and all of the individual breeds were auto-sexing, it was pretty easy to identify the chicks.

I'm planning to add a Welsummer rooster to the flock in 2021, so I can breed both generations of Olive eggers back to him. Since all of my pullets (Legbar, OE F1 and OE back-crosses) are barred, the Welsummer rooster would produce all sex-linked offspring, but it would probably be the final generation of sex identifiable chicks. Although, full disclosure, I don't fully understand what genes make Welsummers auto-sexing, so I could be wrong.

 

[NatJ]

I would like the breed to be autosexing and have a green-blue egg color that has speckles on it. I was thinking like a black copper maran and an Easter egged or olive egged with the leghorn. I just need more information on how to do this and if it’s possible. Thank you!

Cross a Legbar rooster to a maran hen, and keep only daughters.
Cross those daughters back to a Legbar rooster (their father or a different rooster), and keep any chicks that are colored like Legbars. Those Legbar-colored chicks should be autosexing, so make sure to breed only from ones that ARE the right color for their gender.

If you breed those Legbar-colored chicks to each other, or cross them back to Legbars, they should all have the autosexing trait. If you want more Marans traits, repeat the steps in the first paragraph, but use one of the autosexing chicks instead of a Legbar this time.

(Where I said "Marans," many other breeds could also work.)

At each step, of course you have to pick the correctly colored chicks to make the autosexing work, but you want to choose the ones that ALSO have the other traits you want. So for example, raise extras of the correctly-colored pullets, and then only breed from the ones of them that lay the prettiest eggs. Or raise several of the correctly-colored cockerels, then breed from the one with the nicest temperament.

 

[Silkie Amateur]

Cross a Legbar rooster to a maran hen, and keep only daughters.
Cross those daughters back to a Legbar rooster (their father or a different rooster), and keep any chicks that are colored like Legbars. Those Legbar-colored chicks should be autosexing, so make sure to breed only from ones that ARE the right color for their gender.

If you breed those Legbar-colored chicks to each other, or cross them back to Legbars, they should all have the autosexing trait. If you want more Marans traits, repeat the steps in the first paragraph, but use one of the autosexing chicks instead of a Legbar this time.

(Where I said "Marans," many other breeds could also work.)

At each step, of course you have to pick the correctly colored chicks to make the autosexing work, but you want to choose the ones that ALSO have the other traits you want. So for example, raise extras of the correctly-colored pullets, and then only breed from the ones of them that lay the prettiest eggs. Or raise several of the correctly-colored cockerels, then breed from the one with the nicest temperament.

Thank you for all of the information! This sure sounds like a long but fun process!

 

[Silkie Amateur]

The dam was Cream Legbar Rooster over Welsummer hen, an Olive Egger F1. I actually started with OE chicks from Cackle Hatchery. I haven't created any of my own F1 yet. They were able to vent-sex the OE pullets I got from them, so I'm not sure how good the first generation is at auto-sexing.

I bred the OE F1 back to a Cream Legbar rooster. Since all of these combinations include only barred hens and roosters, and all of the individual breeds were auto-sexing, it was pretty easy to identify the chicks.

I'm planning to add a Welsummer rooster to the flock in 2021, so I can breed both generations of Olive eggers back to him. Since all of my pullets (Legbar, OE F1 and OE back-crosses) are barred, the Welsummer rooster would produce all sex-linked offspring, but it would probably be the final generation of sex identifiable chicks. Although, full disclosure, I don't fully understand what genes make Welsummers auto-sexing, so I could be wrong.

Thank you for the info! Genetics sure are complex

 

[sunnie7]

Here is how my Cream Legbar-Welsummer Olive Eggers have worked out. High degree of autosexing...
can-you-accurately-sex-day-old-olive-egger-chicks-legbar-welsummer

I select for the most auto-sexing Legbar pullets, which helps a lot with the predictability when crossing (since my Legbars have been much less consistent in appearance than Welsummers).

I have my first Cream Legbar and Welsummer in the incubator now! I can’t wait to try this down the road!!!!