sex link breeding and comb structure for cold tolerant birds

[lazy gardener]

I'm on the extremely slow path re: breeding birds. My long term goal is to get a rooster NEXT spring to put over my mixed flock currently consisting of EE (pea comb), RIR (st comb), with addition of RCBL, Dominique, and GLW pullets this spring (all RC). The goal is to have fun, and hopefully end up with pea or rose combed birds that will do very well in my specific climate. I know that a dark colored rooster over Dominique will produce a sex linked bird. I am wondering: If I swap out GLW and get SLW instead, will a dark roo over SLW also produce a sex linked bird? Are pure Wyandottes easy to sex at hatch? Any thoughts re: my plan, and a good rooster candidate? I was thinking about using a black Ameraucana, but perhaps an other RC would be the better choice?

I think I can answer my own question here re: the sex linkage by referring to the sex link charts. Thanks.

 

[Alaskan]

Some lines of Dominique are pretty easy to sex at hatch. Maybe you could raise pure bred Dominiques and work on their production and egg size.

 

[donrae]

When you're using a barred bird such as a Dominique for sex linkage, the linkage is based on the barring, not the base color. So any non-white, non-barred rooster over a barred hen will give sex link offspring--doesn't have to be a dark rooster.

Wyandottes aren't barred, so you can't use them in black/barred sex link crosses. You can, however, use them in red sex link crosses as they are silver based...basically you need a red based rooster over them. They're listed on the sex link chart under 2B.
You could use a GLW roo over your slw pullets and your Dom pullets to get two different types of sex links, and they should all have rose combs. I just realized most of the roosters on this chart have straight combs, but if breeding to rose comb hens you could likely breed those out in a generation or two. I don't know what you have available for rooster choices, but something like a Barnevelder might make life interesting, throw some dark egg genes in the mix.

 

[lazy gardener]

Thanks Rachel. I printed off the whole article and charts this morning, and spent about an hour studying them. It was a fun read, and opened up a lot of possibilities. The first thing I'm going to do is call the place I ordered my chicks from and change out my GLW, get SLW instead. So, those with my Doms will be a good starting point for sex links. Now, I'm trying to wrap my head around feather sexing, to see if that will play into my plan. When I hatched RIR, I was able to feather sex them accurately, though there were only 2 of them. But, the chart says that to feather sex, you need to do a cross with a Fast and a Slow feather bird to feather sex them. I need to do more pondering and info gathering. If you can set me straight here, please do! Now, I'll have to check out the barnevelder. I was planning to stay with rose and pea combs just to keep things simple, but could go with st comb if needed. I think if I could offer a sexed chick with good characteristics for our cold weather, it would sell well... if only enough to pay for feed. But, mostly, I'd be doing it for my own education, amusement, and simply because I can.

 

[donrae]

I always have it in my mind Barnevelders have rose combs, that's why I mentioned them. You know how once you get wrong info and just can't get the right stuff instead? Argh

I don't know a thing about feather sexing, sorry.

I think half the fun of keeping birds is all the possibilities! I've so enjoyed the pondering and research--it's good to stretch the ol brain.

 

[lazy gardener]

I know what you mean. I'll ride the knowledge train until I've exhausted the subject, or know more than my mentors... or until something else grabs my brain. I don't have to worry about running out of neuron stim any time soon with poultry! And of course there's the unexhaustable possibilities of the symbiosis of poultry and gardening.

BTW, Barneys are SC.