Question about Blue Copper Marans crosses and sexlinks

[mtma]

I've heard you can easily sex offspring of marans with white dots...is this true, and would it hold true with crosses? Both my roosters are Blue Copper Marans. Hens are various breeds including: bc marans, easter eggers (yeah, I know that's not a breed), barred rocks, wyandottes, legbar mixes, comets, buff orpingtons, and astrolorps. Just wondering if it might be that easy to tell? Thanks!

 

[NatJ]

I've heard you can easily sex offspring of marans with white dots...is this true, and would it hold true with crosses? Both my roosters are Blue Copper Marans. Hens are various breeds including: bc marans, easter eggers (yeah, I know that's not a breed), barred rocks, wyandottes, legbar mixes, comets, buff orpingtons, and astrolorps. Just wondering if it might be that easy to tell? Thanks!

If the roosters do not have white barring
And if some hens do have white barring
Then any chick with white barring has a barred mother AND is a male.

Chicks with no white barring could be either gender if they have a non-barred mother, or daughters of a barred mother.

A chick that will grow up to have white barring on the feathers will often have a white spot on the head when it hatches.

(Barred hen + not-barred rooster is how Black Sexlinks are made, although it doesn't really require black--works fine on some other colors as well.)

It's a little different than the auto-sexing trait in breeds that are pure for barring, which can often be sexed by the amount/placement of the light headspot on the chicks. Those breeds would include Barred Rocks, Dominiques, Cuckoo Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelders, and the Crele variety of any breed.

 

[mtma]

Thank you so much for that answer! So thoughtful and informative!