Sapphire gem and barred Plymouth rock rooster

[alexanye]

Maybe I worried too much about my Guineas, then. That's usually what I end up doing, of course! They are really interesting birds to me, but man, they were so frustrating to herd around.

Ya, that is why we don't they don't herd like chickens do. They are soo stupid

 

[alexanye]

I have been looking at these chicks very closely, the ones that hold their tails more erect have larger combs and the start of waddles. They also have noticeably thicker legs than the others. It is looking to me like I'll end up with 5 roos and 4 hens. It's still too early to be positive but wouldn't it be super cool if it was that easy to tell? I'm really hoping I am right about this.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Sure would be cool! I have a whole article dedicated to testing all sorts of chick sexing methods to see if any of them work, so this is quite intriguing to me. Most of the methods I've gathered are quite, err, creative, but some do seem at least somewhat logical in ways. If this works for you, I may add tail carriage to the list and try it out with a few of my babies!

This is the link if you're interested in reading about it! It's been my pride and joy work on this website and a lot of fun to collect data on over the years. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/an-experiment-in-chick-sexing-methods.72520/

 

[alexanye]

I will definitely check that out, and keep you updated on how these babies develop. If this works, I will definitely be breeding for this, among a list of other things I have been putting together

 

[alexanye]

I have another loaded color genetics question, if you cross a barred rock with a laced Wyandotte can you get barred/laced chicks? If so does that have to be done in a certain way like barred rooster with a laced hen? And would it breed true? So if I had a barred laced roo with a barred laced hen would the chicks match? Or is this a mix that would need to be crossed each time? A lot of these questions only matter if this works in the first place

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

First generation cross between a Barred Rock male and a laced Wyandotte female would result in chicks who are primarily black barred but with some leakage, either gold or silver depending on what color of lacing the Wyandotte has and whether the Barred Rock carried gold or silver. This is because Barred Rocks are genetically solid black birds with the barring gene over top of that, and solid black is dominant over lacing so it would cover up the lacing on the first generation cross. It would take a few generations of selecting and culling birds (which doesn't necessarily mean killing them, just removing them from your breeding program!), but it is possible to make a barred and laced chicken. Barring is a dominant trait that can go over just about any 'ground color' like lacing.

Yes, if you managed to breed barred laced chickens over several generations, it would breed true like any purebred barred breed or any purebred laced breed. I honestly feel like I've heard of a variety of Wyandotte over in Europe that was genetically both laced and barred, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called to look them up again.