Red Shavers?

[Mr MKK FARMS]

True, But EEs and Stars aren't breeds either!

 

[Fred's Hens]

As for breeding your own, just stating the obvious here.

The sex links don't breed true. You cannot breed them and get more sex links, of course. That's a one time thing. There are dozens and dozens of poultry genetics corporations and hatcheries that have created red sex links, and while they are all similar and similar in purpose, they are created with slight variant differences. The Hendrix/ISA/Bovan/Shaver group has a half dozen slightly different "models" themselves.

 

[Fred's Hens]

True, But EEs and Stars aren't breeds either!

Just referring to the Wikki article. Wikkis are not always a reliable source of information. The wikki called the Shaver a breed, while they are commercial hybrids.

 

[my sunwolf]

As for breeding your own, just stating the obvious here.

The sex links don't breed true. You cannot breed them and get more sex links, of course. That's a one time thing. There are dozens and dozens of poultry genetics corporations and hatcheries that have created red sex links, and while they are all similar and similar in purpose, they are created with slight variant differences. The Hendrix/ISA/Bovan/Shaver group has a half dozen slightly different "models" themselves.

As I stated, when you breed your own sex-links you can use a red rooster and some sort of white-based hen--certain pairings work better than others, there's a thread on here about it.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Oh sure. There's no mystery in making your own red sex links. Red (gold) rooster over a white (silver) hen. Ta da.

However, these highly selected, long researched, specialized commercial layers would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. These genetics corporations have selectively bred the parent stock and the grandparent stock (most commercial birds are actually 4 way crosses or double bred) for decades. The strains they use are privately held, proprietary birds. Their performance is quite remarkable.

Very hard to achieve when "rolling your own". But making red sexlinks of your own is indeed pretty easy to do.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Thanks for the info!

 

[elsfieldchickens]

my red shaver cockerel hes so sweet

 

[Pepperanne]

Just one of the many commercial red sex links. Not a breed. Dual Purpose? From what we've experienced with RSLs and commercial RSLs in particular, that would be a stretch. Great layers. Meat? Hmmmmmmmmmmm................. Not so much.

Ok there are lots red sex linked birds- some are cross-breeds/hybrids but there ARE a few sex linked BREEDS. As far as I know, the Red Shaver is a breed that was developed in Ottawa, Ontario with the purpose of have a dual purpose bird that will consistently have easy autosex chicks.
The difference between a breed and a cross-bred sex linked bird is that the latter is one that does not breed true (meaning that you cannot breed your chicks and expect them to have the same offspring). There are at least three breeds of sexlinked chickens - The red shaver, the ISA Brown and the Cream LegBar. I don't know what they added to make them breed true but I have read that they do now.

Sex linked cross-bred birds are easy to breed for yourself
To get a RED sex link (there can be separate names based on the cross but most just call them red stars): breed a red roo (NHR or RIR) with a white or silver hen (like a Delaware, white rock, RIwhite, white or silver wyandottes, white opies or white Giants etc..) Each cross has it's own name (or several lol) for example an NIR with a rock is a golden commet. Common names of red sex links are Red Star, Shaver Brown, Bovans Browns GoldenBuffs, Cinnamon Queens etc.

Black linked cross bred sex linked birds are commonly called a Black Star. This is a combination of a RIR or a NHR roo with a barred rock hen. There are other kinds of black sex links like the Bovan's Blacks, Black Shaver's.. I do not know if they all use the same cross.

There are many threads on sex linked birds with people who know a lot more than I do about them..

My main point is that there are now full breeds of sexlinks available and they do breed true. So maybe we should refer to the breeds as autosexed breeds instead of sexlinks.... errr?? I dunno
These are pics of Cream Legbars They are sex links, breed true and lay tinted eggs. I WANT some!!! lol I have no clue where to get them from

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Yeah they sound exactly like Sex-Links, but that dual purpose thing is odd?

I am glad you guys are aware that sex-links, amber-links, Red stars etc are all just the same breed.lol.
I have had people say they have Red stars and I tell them they are the same thing as a Sex-link just a different name but they are convinced Red stars are purebred and are their own breed.

 

[call ducks]

Quote:
Ok. There is a difference between Cream Legbars,Production birds,and sexlinks

ISA Brown's and Shaver Reds (Shaver's laying lines now owned by ISA, which is owned by Hendrix) are an ABCD cross - they them selfs are not purebreds.

Cream legbars are an auto-sexing breed - utilizing the Br (barred) gene on top of of the e+ gene. Rhodebars, Cambars, Welbars, are all examples of a autosexing breed - it is a purebred breed that utilizes a specific combination of genes.

Black Stars could be a few things -They could be a black ABCD bird (if memory serves me Shaver developed a black production line) or it could be a sex-linked cross but most likely it is a black production line.

Yeah they sound exactly like Sex-Links, but that dual purpose thing is odd?

I am glad you guys are aware that sex-links, amber-links, Red stars etc are all just the same breed.lol.
I have had people say they have Red stars and I tell them they are the same thing as a Sex-link just a different name but they are convinced Red stars are purebred and are their own breed.

They are not the same breed - the saying "a rose by any other colour" would not apply here - Hatchery's give them prettier names and more generic names because the industry names are way to hard to remember them (trust me on this). The combination of parent lines can drastically change the out comes of a line