Reverse Hybrids?

[digitS']

The Black Star chicken is very popular as a multipurpose hybrid. It results usually from a cross between a Rhode Island Red male and a Barred Plymouth Rock female. They have the advantage that altho' both sexes hatch out black - the males have a white dot on their heads. Black Sex-Links, Black Stars, Rock Reds - I guess they are all the same.

Here's my question, is there any advantage (other than hybrid vigor) in crossing a Barred Plymouth Rock male and a Rhode Island female??

I don't suppose that sex could be easily determined upon hatching the offspring but might there be another advantage? Would further out-crossing of the offspring produce a beneficial result?

Just very curious . . .

Steve

 

[AtRendeAcres]

I asked this a few weeks ago!

I was told no & they would all be barred

 

[greyfields]

Reverse crosses do not work as far as sex-linking. The sire must be red (RIR, NHR, and a few others work but I can't think of at the moment).

I want to believe I read something that the sire has a larger contribution to the offspring than the dame. Why, though, I can't remember... and maybe it was a nuiance of chicken genetics.

Honestly, the best thing to do would be getting a RIR rooster and breed him to your Barred Rocks for sequential crops of BSL's.

As a complete aside, I'm breeding a BSL hen to a Cornish rooster to see what the meat turns out like.

 

[silkiechicken]

Yep, no advantage. One "advantage" of commercial sexlinks, is often the parent strains are bred to be "high" egg layers too, so the offspring are also "high" egg layers.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

When you breed a barred rock roo to RIR you will get all barred birds. The offspring are awesome looking, they are red and white barred, kinda bad barring, but they are awesome. I beleive there will be some hybrid vigor but not as much as a normal sexlink.

 

[digitS']

Quote:
I was pretty confident that the sex-linking would NOT work out. The "complete aside" was what I was curious about, greyfields!

I hope you will have a report on how the meat birds turn out . . .

And, "awesome looking" chickens wouldn't be a bad thing . . .

Steve