Question about sexlink chicks . . .

[scoopy82]

I'm interested in trying to breed sexlink chickens, purely to make it easier to tell what sex they are when they first hatch. My question is - do you need to collect eggs from hens that have also been sexlink bred, or will it work with any breed provided you use the corrosponding rooster? As I have brown Leghorn hens and have read that if you use a Gold Legbar Rooster then the boy and girl chicks will hatch with the sexlink differences. Or would my 2 hens need to have been bred in the same way for it to work? Am I making any sense? Any thoughts

 

[Zaxby's2]

I'm not too sure about your question, but you will probably get a better response in the breeds and genetics section of the forum. You will probably get some good answers here too though.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Legbar are a sex link breed that breeds true. Though the barred rock and brown leghorns were used in making the gold legbar I don't believe they will breed true sex links if crossed with a brown leghorn again. I'll differ to the genetic guru's here on BYC but my thought is that a Gold legbar roo over brown leghorns would result in all brown leghorn looking chicks with half of them carrying the legbar (female) trait. Perhaps second generation of those pullets under the legbar father would result in self perpetuation auto sexing legbar qualities.

 

[scoopy82]

Ah thanks - and sorry I should have realised this question would have been better asked under that section. Best I go post in there

 

[Gypsy07]

Genuine autosexing breeds are different from sexlink hybrids. Autosexing breeds are proper chicken breeds that always breed true. Sexlink hybrids are chicks from one breed of hen bred with another breed of rooster to produce different male and female chicks. They won't breed true, as in, if you take a sexlink male and a sexlink female from the same type of parent bird crossing and mate them together, you won't get more sexlink chicks, you'll most likely just get a funny mishmash of colours that are no help in sorting out boys from girls.

Just about any breed ending in -bar is an autosexing breed: Legbar, Wybar, Rhodebar, Cambar, Brussbar etc, but apart from Legbars I think most of them are pretty rare if not completely unheard of nowadays. Like the Dorbar or the Hambar! All of those were developed in the UK and I think work on them mostly ceased some time soon after WWII.

Sexlink hybrids are created by mating a genetically gold cockerel with a genetically silver hen. A RIR cockerel with Light Sussex hens is a fairly popular pairing. That produces male and female chicks that are two different colours, goldy brown or silvery grey - sorry, but I can't remember which colour is the male chick and which colour is the female chick.

Another type of sexlink hybrids are created by mating a non-barred cockerel with a barred hen. I *think* that gives you all black female chicks and male chicks with a yellow spot on their heads, but please confirm that elsewhere cause I'm dredging that up out of my memory and it might be mixed up a bit.

If you google it, you'll probably find all sorts of useful info, especially in UK pages...

 

[scoopy82]

I'm starting to get the idea of this sexlink stuff, i find it really interesting. I'm off to do some more reading

Thanks again!