Noob Hybrid breeder

[Silkies 13]

G'day, I'm a newbie with 3 yrs of experience with chickens. By now I've hatched 5 chicks under a broody hen all the whites were girls, all the boys were black. (The roo who fertilized the eggs was a cinnamon queen.) I'd like to learn more about breeding, sex-linked hybrids and auto-sexing pure breeds. Bye y'all.

 

[Isadora]

Hello and welcome to BYC! I'm so glad you decided to join our friendly and helpful community.

 

[N F C]

Thanks for joining us, it's nice to have you here!

 

[416bigbore]

Hello and welcome to BYC. You found an Amazing Poultry Community to be a part of, with many knowledgeable members who are willing to help you along your journey with any questions you may have. Enjoy

 

[swampfox440]

Welcome to BYC! Nice to meet you and thanks for joining.

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.

 

[janiedoe]

Hello, welcome to BYC!

 

[NatJ]

By now I've hatched 5 chicks under a broody hen all the whites were girls, all the boys were black. (The roo who fertilized the eggs was a cinnamon queen.)

The color of those chicks was just a coincidence, not due to any kind of sex linking.

I'd like to learn more about breeding, sex-linked hybrids and auto-sexing pure breeds.

Here's an article about sexlinks (hybrids) that may help you:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/an-inside-look-at-the-humble-sexlink-chicken.73484/

Since I haven't found an article about autosexing pure breeds, here are the basics I've learned from reading about them:

Autosexing pure breeds all use the barring gene, which causes white barring on the feathers. It is on the Z sex chromosome.

Because a hen has chromosomes ZW, she only has one copy of the barring gene. So she gets one amount of white.

A rooster has chromosomes ZZ, so he can have two copies of the barring gene. That makes him have more white (and usually a bigger spot of light color on his head at hatch, and sometimes other visible effects at hatch).

Barring can make white bars on any color of chicken, but of course they are more obvious on some colors than others. Barring on black is very obvious, barring on shades of red or brown or blue shows up pretty well, barring on buff is hard to see, while white barring on a white chicken is not visible enough to have any use

Barring does have some effect on the down color of the chick, but it varies depending on the base color of the chickens. Barred Rocks (black base) have a yellow spot on the head, larger in males than females. The males also have lighter-colored legs than females. The breeds best known for being autosexing (like Legbars and Bielefelders) have a wild-type base (also called Duckwing or Black Breasted Red). For them, the males have a light spot on the head while females do not, and the males also have lighter-colored down on the rest of the body.

For any color that is a dilution or lighter form of black (like blue or chocolate), white barring behaves the same as it does on black. It just doesn't have as much contrast.

I don't know what barring does for other colors of chick down, but since no-one has developed autosexing breeds on other colors, I would assume it does not show up clearly enough to be very useful.

Colors called "cuckoo" also have the white barring gene, so they work just as well as "barred" chickens for autosexing or sexlinks. (Cuckoo Marans, for example.)

 

[Grammy60]

Hello and welcome to BYC So happy you have joined us.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Welcome to BYC! We're glad you decided to join us!