Sex- linked Information

[Ridgerunner]

Aloha, 

Mahalo for sharing your knowledge. Very interesting.  

So the Delawares have dominant Silver(S) color one one chromosome and a barring gene(B) on another part of the Z chromosome?

And Black Jersey Giants have dominant Extended black(E) and do not carry the barring gene(b+)?

Mahalo, Puhi

Yes on all counts

 

[Ridgerunner]

If the Delaware roo over the BJG hen makes all barred offspring, where does the white color come from in the female offspring? Or is the white color of barring part of what barring is?

You should not be getting white chicks with a Delaware roo over a Black JG hen. If you are that means one of the parents is not pure Delaware or maybe not pure JG but is some kind of mix. Probably the JG would be the one that is not pure.

The white in a barred feather comes from the barred gene. It doesn’t matter if the chicken has Silver or Gold, the white comes from the barred gene. It’s very possible to have a red barred chicken, with red feathers and white barring. In that case the chicken would have Gold, no Silver at all.

Also, What happens to the Silver in the male offspring? I thought it was part of the barring since it is dominant. Or at least co-dominant?

Silver has nothing to do with barring. Silver is dominant over Gold at that point on the chromosome, but in a black barred chick other things are hiding the Silver or Gold.

 

[lazy gardener]

It’s the same sex linked barred gene that’s used to make Barred like Barred Rock or Cuckoo like a Cuckoo Marans. From a black sex link viewpoint it’s the same gene. What makes the major difference between cuckoo and barred is the slow or fast feathering gene. There are always other factors but simplistically put, if a barred chicken has the fast feathering gene the barring comes out with that scattered cuckoo look. If a barred chicken has the slow feathering gene the feather grows slower and comes out sharply barred. It’s the rate of growth of the feathers that determines if the look is cuckoo or barred, not the barring gene itself.

Also, I'm having a hard time identifying the female chicks from my EE roo x SLW hen. The males have a real nice SL pattern, and are obvious. But, as I didn't mark the eggs b/c they were mixed up with all the rest of the brown eggs, I don't know who is who! There are black chicks with black combs, (Iknow for a fact that these are NOT the BSL from the EE x Dom b/c of the color of their toes. They might be EE x BSL, or is it possible for them to be the EE x SLW sex links?) Then there are partridge colored birds with a lot of black on head and upper neck, more gold through the hackles, and a speckled partridge pattern, with occasional white flecks. These chicks did have the mottling at the sides of their face that is typical of SLW when they were at the down stage. Do any readers have pics of EE x SLW sex links, or a verbal description to help me id?

Further question. I've noticed that my last generation of BSL (EE x PBR) pullets all had black combs, while the cockrels had pink/red combs. Is it safe to assume that black comb = female? I think I'm seeing the same tendency with this batch.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you read the very first post in this thread Tim talks about feather sexing. If you know that the female is slow feathering and the male is pure for fast feathering then you can feather sex the offspring.

I don’t know of any sex linked gene that affects comb color. That barred gene may have some effect but if it does I’m not aware of it. My guess is that it was coincidence more than anything else but I could be wrong.

I can’t help you on the rest of that. An EE is likely a mix of different things so with the random nature of how genes are passed down (you don’t know which gene at a gene pair will be passed down) you could easily get different looking chicks from the same parents. Same thing with your bsl hens. They are mixes so they have a lot of different genes that might get passed down. There may be some patterns that can be sorted but with them being mixes I don’t know what patterns that might be. When you hatch different eggs from different crosses in the same incubator it can be real difficult to figure out what you have. I’ve done that. Looking back after they feathered out it was pretty easy to see what was going on but at the time I did not have a clue.

There is a way to get sex links based on leg color too. One of the dominant genes that effect leg color is sex linked. I can’t remember which leg colors are involved or which is dominant but I’ve seen it mentioned a few times.

 

[englishcockers]

Quote: That's interesting. That's the result one would expect if the rooster was a Silky or other fibro melanotic breed.
That's another sexlinked gene. Does your EE rooster have a black comb and skin?

 

[lazy gardener]

That's interesting. That's the result one would expect if the rooster was a Silky or other fibro melanotic breed.
That's another sexlinked gene. Does your EE rooster have a black comb and skin?

No. As a matter of fact, the first year, I hatched BSL from RIR x PBR. That pullet had a very black comb as did her sisters from the same breeding. (The BSL roosters were all "normal colored combs") As she matured, it became red, though there are still some black dots at the base. The next year, I hatched some BSL from EE x PBR. Again, those pullets had black combs that turned red as they reached puberty. (roosters were normal colored combs) This year, my EE roo is a descendent of EE from last year. Many of his chicks have black combs. Specifically, the chicks from the EE x BSL (they all have a whitish middle toe, which came from their mothers who all had a white middle toe nail!) And quite a few of the other chicks have black combs as well.

But, I will say, that the roo pictured in my avatar does throw sex links 100% of the time when I can identify the eggs. And he was hatched from a blue egg. Should get a pretty egg basket from these pullets.

 

[jerryse]

No. As a matter of fact, the first year, I hatched BSL from RIR x PBR. That pullet had a very black comb as did her sisters from the same breeding. (The BSL roosters were all "normal colored combs") As she matured, it became red, though there are still some black dots at the base. The next year, I hatched some BSL from EE x PBR. Again, those pullets had black combs that turned red as they reached puberty. (roosters were normal colored combs) This year, my EE roo is a descendent of EE from last year. Many of his chicks have black combs. Specifically, the chicks from the EE x BSL (they all have a whitish middle toe, which came from their mothers who all had a white middle toe nail!) And quite a few of the other chicks have black combs as well.

But, I will say, that the roo pictured in my avatar does throw sex links 100% of the time when I can identify the eggs. And he was hatched from a blue egg. Should get a pretty egg basket from these pullets.

Black combs do show up in other breeds . Usually referred to as mulberry comb or gypsy face . I have seen it in Old English Games and other breeds . Not sure how it is inherited .

 

[father time]

you pretty much nailed it on breeding for sexing chicks and a couple other things but here is food for thought. i breed and produce sex links for chick sexing and other qualities but why i breed the sex links is for production mainly. i have over the last four years bred my sex link crosses both black and red by selecting my best layers for egg size and quantity and they are doing quite well in the laying department but of course i get different color patterns but lay well. i started with my four best gold sex link hens who laid the most and largest eggs i have seen in sex links. now maybe i just got lucky but they are here and doing quite well in the egg department but i actually started more than four years ago but thats when they started doing what i wanted. and i might add that if you cant cull and select dont breed especially if your selling chickens thats how all these misfits come to be. i have four brood cocks of heritage breeds that i use so no im not breeding sexlink roosters just hens. now they are coming better than what i started which is what any good breeding program should do.

 

[lazy gardener]

My long range plan is to breed a small combed bird that does well in our northern climate. And yes, I am culling for flock improvement, keeping only the best. I started out last year with an extremely varied gene pool (deliberately) and will see how things develop from there. Sex links are a bonus, but great to have. This year, I am hatching everything, and keeping the best chicks. May do the same thing next year. Then, I will make some decisions about where to take my flock in terms of breeding after that. I intend to be independent of having to order chicks from any source for a good long time. BTW, readers might be interested that my gender selection experiment was IMO a very good success. Will repeat it at next hatch.

 

[browncow15]

I have a couple questions, sorry if this has been discussed.

I have cream crested Legbars and a black Olive egger roo. This combination should produce sexlinked chicks correct? Males would have a white spot on their head at hatch and females should be solid?

Does the sex linking with the barred gene work in reverse? I have chicks that are cuckoo maran roo over solid female marans. Would the whit spot on these chicks denote female or just that they will be cuckoo patterned?