I have a RIR rooster and a Golden Sex link hen. The chicks would be 3/4 RIR. Would they be considered sex links? Could they be color Sexed?
Quote:Not Sex linked at this stage as the momm is already sex linked for Gold(s+) same as dad(RIR Roo) so sex linking at this moment is imposible... so here is how it works sex linked Gold dad(your Sex linked hen's dad) mated to a Silver Hen(Can be a Delaware) gives you 100% of gold hens(like your sex link hen) and Silver and Gold roosters but since silver is dominant over gold then they will all look like silver at hatch and that's how they separate them at hatch...
Quote:Rhode island red can be sexed with a high degree of accuracy ( above 90%) at hatch but they have to be bred for specific characteristics. Males will have a large white patch on the wing and the females will have a small or no white patch on the wing. I have not seen any data that would support sexing rhode island red by head color. I raised and worked with rhode island red and the only characteristic that I found reliable was the wing patch. Read this. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208 Tim
if you bred opposite( silver male red female ) would the chicks be opposite? would it be a reverse sex-link??
Quote:No... why? let me try to explain this the best I can and if I get something wrong I know there will be guys around here to correct me... Silver is Dominant to Gold, the Silver gene is expressed as the letter "S" and the recessive Gold is expressed with the letter "s+" you see the difference? Capital S for dominat and lower case s for recessive, no the "+" sign is to represent the wild type nature of the gene(found on wild Red Jungle Fowl).. both genes are located in the sex chromosome "Z"... now here comes the tricky part... Remember how in humans boys are XY and Girls are XX? where X is the most important and biger in size chromosome..! Boys can live with a diffective Y chromosome but will not live long or at all with a diffective X chromosome, girls have it easy for them as if they have a diffective X chromosome they have another healthy one.. those chromosomes are Sex chromosome.. Now on chickens is the Other way around Boys are ZZ and Girls are ZW where Z is the most important and bier in size chromosome... so if "S" is located on the Z chromosom the Silver Boys have 2 compies of S, meaning Boys are S/S and Silver Hens can only have one copy of "S" so they will be S/- where the dash sign "-" repressent the void.. So lets cross a Silver roo to a Gold gen we have a S/S x s+/- out of the cross the hens can only have their father Silver "S" gene so they will ALL be S/- making them Silver at hatch... Boys will have one copy of their father Silver "S" gene and one copy of their mother gold "s+" gene and since Silver is Dominant to Gold, they will be Silver at hatch so you see no sexing them at hatch... eventualy when the boys grow to be roosters they will be called Golden(mix of silver and gold) and they will have yellow hackles and yellow saddle instead of the red if gold "s+" or white if Silver "S" was that of any help?..
