Making sexlinks...another genetics question

[Cocky]

I was considering buying some hens to match my Buff orp roo.

I was told that if I get a white orpington and it has the silver gene or trait or whatever it is called it could make sexlinked baby orpingtons with my buff orp roo.

So my question is how do I know or find out if the white orpington hen has the silver trait, and could this really work?

 

[urbanagrarian]

You could make sex-links with Barred Plymouth Rock hens also. The male chicks will be barred the females won't be barred.

 

[Kev]

To find out if a white has silver, cross it to a gold. If it has silver, there will be "black and white" offspring.

Just in case.. gold is a bird without silver- black breasted red, buff brahma, gold laced polish and so on.. Silver birds are well, silvers(often silver on a BBR pattern), light brahmas, silver laced polish etc.

A mating of buff brahma rooster and a light brahma hen will give sex linked mating- roosters will be light and hens buffs. (however good silvers also has an extra set of genes to prevent the gold from leaking through especially on the wings. So the silvers from this cross probably will show some red on the wings or some places on the body.. this is why exhibition breeders don't use this. Just a note before anybody sees this and runs off to attempt it..)

I was tired last night. I just realized a potential problem with using white hens for sex linked mating- it also depends on if they are dominant black or birchen(or not). Those are not sex linked but dominant so if a white bird is say, a dominant black then all of the offpsring in both sexes could be mostly black which would make sex linking them as chicks hard.

If a white bird was bred to a say, a black breasted red and the offspring are black then the white also has dominant black or birchen.

Sometimes you can find out by asking the breeder what base their whites are on.

 

[Cocky]

Thank you So much Kev!

But,

I have just realized that I am not quite ready for all that. My head is spinning just trying to figure all that out....I will read it again when I have had a chance to absorb the first time I read it, and maybe I will be able to figure it out then...maybe when I am a little less tired.