My crazy...leghorn cockerel

[Beccazon]

White cockerels with leaky hackles and saddles (and often wing bars) are indicative of the sex link crossing. A red or buff rooster will be put over a white hen such as a deleware. Since white is dominant over these colors but can only be passed to male offspring by the hen, the result is pullets that look like the father with a bit of white leakage and cockerels that look like the mother with a bit of color leakage from the father (gold or red). The exact color of the offspring relies a lot on which specific pairings of parent stock are used and is what spins of a lot of designer sex link variations like cinnamon queen, golden comet, etc.

Fantastic info easily understandable! THANK YOU!

 

[cmom]

If you are looking for pure breeds you need to find a breeder. Hatcheries are flock breeders where they have a lot of males in with a lot of females and you get what you get.

 

[Beccazon]

Yup that's why I stated I wasn't worried about breed purity. I wanted to start a flock of random eggers and just have pretties to watch. So I bought a few of several kinds. Only expecting those breeds for the reason of visual interest in the yard. And boy did I get that! My 3 BSL are God knows what. 2 are cockerels and black with vivid beautiful colors and markings. People here have dubbed them several different breeds. One is assumably a BSL pullet. I bought 3 "orpington" which turned out to be this guy and 2 Brahma pullets. All from TSC. Went to FF&H and got 4 RIRs. All are proper production RIR pullets. And 2 random straight run bantam. I am happy with what I have...basically. Just annoyed that I have to ask people WHAT I have do to crap store employees and/or crap hatchery sources. In the future I will go to one of the 2 good breeders in my region of the state or back to FF&H. I am also excited to see what this guys turns out with my girls if I keep him and what I get from the 2 strange but beautiful black/rainbow cockerels.

Just a bummer that you cannot trust what you are told I guess.

 

[cmom]

Yard candy... I had been looking for some brown leghorns and bought some from Rural King that came from a tank marked Brown Leghorns. They turned out to be Partridge Rocks. I did eventually sell them and found a breeder for the Brown Leghorns.

 

[Rietta]

I got blue Andalusians that turned out to be barred rocks. Escape artists they make me crazy The colors are cool on those roosters though.

 

[cmom]

I had a couple of White Leghorns females that no matter what coop and pen I put them in they could always find a way out, Houdini-1 and Houdini-2. They eventually disappeared. I guess they got out one too many times. I found some feathers behind the coops.

 

[cstephens1987]

I had a couple of White Leghorns females that no matter what coop and pen I put them in they could always find a way out, Houdini-1 and Houdini-2. They eventually disappeared. I guess they got out one too many times. I found some feathers behind the coops.

My last blrw chick was able to squeeze through the tiniest holes somehow. Found it in my dogs mouth after about 20 minutes of searching. Dog is apparently a lot faster at finding missing chicks in the dark than I am

 

[sourland]

Unfortunately many farm stores mix up or mislabel the breeds they sell.

And TSC does so with great regularity.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

So then, as a newbie to breeds, how do I tell he is a SL? Should I expect he will change color even more? I know SL were bred as a cross so their coloring and "purity" is subject to oddities when not from a strong reputable hatchery. But not knowing breeds very well, how does a person dub this guy a SL? What makes you look and say Sex Link?

His body shape is different than a leghorn, and as the others have said, that leakage is common in RSLs. He also appears to have faint barring. Barred chickens (like delawares) are sometimes used in RSL crossings.

 

[cmom]

Years ago I did experiment with some crosses. One was Del females with RIR male. The females looked like Rhode Island Reds and the males looked like the Delaware. A Del male with female RIR's and all of the chicks looked like the Delaware.