Sex Link Question

[protodon]

Can anyone explain how this sex-linkage is working. I have a Black Sex Link as one of my "matriarchs" she has produced quite a few children. Now any eggs I hatch in my mixed flock, if the chicks are black they are female, if they are gold they are male. I thought sex-linking didn't really carry into the next generation. But this has been going on for at least 2 generations, I'm not sure if there has been backcross to the original hen though. I assume there has been since she is an egglaying machine and I hatch whatever is there at the time. My original mixes are BSL/BO and then mixes of their progeny and possibly back to the parents.

Any of my chickens, fathered buy my BO/BSL roos and my one EE hen do not exhibit this sex linkage.

 

[tadkerson]

I just want to make sure I understand your post. The black sex linked hen (a buff orpington male and barred rock female hybrid) when crossed with ______________ produces black down female chicks and males that have reddish down.

What variety goes in the blank?

Tim

 

[protodon]

Quote:
Well my first cross was black sex link hen to pure buff orp roo and that resulted in black female chicks and gold male chicks. Crosses of any of the progeny to each other or their parents all resulted in black female chicks and gold male chicks. I really only noticed because I kept hatching to get a black male to put with a female of the same color but apparently that never happens when crossing these particular breeds. At least not so for me, so far.

 

[tadkerson]

What ever is happening is not a sex linked trait. Sex linked traits do not work the way you have described. Sex influenced traits can cause differences but with the crosses you have made that is not logical also. If it were a dominant trait in females and a recessive trait in males- well that would not work either because you hatched black females and gold males in the first cross.

It may be a gene that is closely linked to the gold locus or a promotor linked to the gold locus that is causing the chicks color. The gene or promotor would be affecting the color change. I will have to work this out on paper and think through all the possibilities because it would involve some combination of sex linkage, domanance /recessive and sex influenced traits. The male BO would have provided the genetic material to cause the situation.

I will come back and edit this post if I have an answer.



Tim

 

[protodon]

Well I will continue to see what I get from hatches. I just hatched a few but now I have EE genes thrown into the BO/BSL mix, from BO/BSL roos mating with my EE hen. I am now hatching from the progeny of that cross. So a BO/BSL/EE roo over BO/BSL/EE hens and the same roo over just BO/BSL hens. I have 5 hatched. 3 are black, 1 is a dark brown and one is a gold "chipmunk" pattern (probably the only one from the BO/BSl/EE roo over BO/BSl/EE hen). I'm interested to see if my black chicks end up being female. I've never had this many at one time. Usually I will end up with 4 gold chicks and 1 black chick.

I admit my crosses are confusing but if I could keep moving forward with the crosses I want to make and keep that gold male/black female for sexing, I think it would really add a lot to my project but as you say, it's probably not sex-linked.