RIRs?

[MrsAuberry00]

The other bird is either Barred Rock or male BSL, which can be hard to tell between, I do think your barred bird is a rooster. Really gangly with full comb and wattles. Being darker, meaning single barred, rather than double barred, indicates male BSL...or poorly ran Barred Rock stock.

Leg color and black wash in Barred Rocks only works in carefully controlled breeder lines and only in that line as the head dot size and wash vary between sexes between lines.

I'm so confused. LOL I've been googling what double and single barred looks like/is and I'm even more confused now. And by BSL, do you mean Black Sex Link?

 

[MrsAuberry00]

From a thread on November 14th, 2015, QueenMisha posted "It's genetically impossible for a hen to be double-barred." I think I'm reading that you're saying this bird is single barred which would indicate female?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Barring can have 2 genes. If you have both genes, then it is double barred. One gene is single barred. No barring genes is no barred.

If it is present, the barring gene will sit on the long chromosome, called the Z chromosome in birds. The short chromosome is called the W chromosome and contains no barring information.

In birds the female is ZW and the male is ZZ. Mom gives one of her genes, either Z or W, to the offspring; and dad gives one of his genes, either Z or Z (they are identical) to his offspring of this mating.

Since the barring gene sits on the Z chromosome, in pure barred breeds, like Barred Rocks (and similar in Cuckoo Marans), it means the boys get a double dose of barred Z...one from dad and one from mom....so they get both barring genes, one barred Z from each parent, and are thus double barred.

Girls on the other hand get one barred Z from dad but got the W from mom, which doesn't have the barring gene. That means they are single barred.

Both sexes will be black chicks with a white head dot. In some lines, it is clear that the boys have a larger head dot to forecast the double barring to come, but you usually can't tell sex between different flock lines from dot sizes as barring width varies.

That's what people are looking at when they look at Barred Rocks and the overall coloring. Double barred males look lighter and more silvery from the double barring while single barred girls look darker as they only have single barring. However, it can be hard to tell them apart without standing them side by side as you literally are seeing is that black on white or white on black....wide white lines or narrow white lines. And there are some variations of overall coloring and barring width between flock lines of breeders. Hatchery lines are even worse as they breed for production rather than appearance. You have barring widths all over the map.

Now let's look at the Black Sex Link...and yes, that's what I meant by BSL.

Black sex links are just that....birds that are sex-able at hatch as their coloring is linked to the sex.

For this project, you must have a barred female (usually a Barred Rock). She will have one barring gene on her one Z chromosome. The other, remember is her W non-barred chromosome. She will pass this barred Z chromosome to half (statistically) of her offspring while the other half (statistically) of her offspring get her non-barred W chromosome.

Now let's put her with a non-barred male, usually a red-based bird like a Production Red, or RIR, or even a New Hampshire (I personally have used a Barnevelder rooster). Dad has ZZ, but none of them contain any barring information as he doesn't have any barring genes...if he did, they would be on his Z chromosomes...but he's not...so he doesn't.

Now let's look at the math. Mom gives a barred Z to dad's non-barred Z...you now have a single barred male chick which hatches with a white head dot on black base. The white dot indicates the barring that will develop as he grows. He will be a single barred male. A BSL male.

Mom now gives her non-barred W to dad's non-barred Z and you get a non-barred ZW girl who hatches all black with no head dot. She will grow up to be mostly a black bird with often some red "bleed through" from dad's red color base. Your typical BSL female.

So when we look at a dark-ish barred bird, that is possibly about 16 weeks of age, give or take, and see large comb and wattles, with a gangly stance, indications are you've got a male BSL that is single barred rather than a female single barred BR since at 16 weeks, most female BR's won't be mature enough for large comb and wattles as they don't get those until point of lay (about 20 weeks).

ETA: You can see how easy it would be for a feed store clerk to mix up a male BSL chick (black with head dot) and put it in a bin of Barred Rocks (all chicks black with white head dots). Usually BSL are sold sexed as it is so obvious...But something has to happen to all those male BSL chicks that hatch...so they can be purchased straight run...if a clerk didn't pay attention and clicked on straight run BSL, got a male BSL, then thought....oh I must have a Barred Rock in this shipment of sexed BSL (girls)....you get the idea.

HTH
LofMc

 

[MrsAuberry00]

I wasn't aware that Black Sex Links could be any other color than black. Haha! Hence my TOTAL confusion. Thanks. I'm going to post a bunch more photos of her, him, hem, it in a bit. I'm also going to start a new thread about it since my initial post was about the RIRs.