Sex- linked Information

[junebuggena]

The leg color sexing would work, but only if you are very sure of your birds ancestry. If your using hatchery birds, leg color won't be sexlinked properly because a lot of the white skinned large breeds normally don't lay very well and have been crossed with high producing birds like Production Reds to boost lay rate. This means that even though two 'pure' hatchery birds have white legs, when bred, could produce chicks with yellow legs.

 

[donrae]

Speaking of leg color.....

I have a batch of accidental chicks that are splash Ameraucana male over Dark Cornish female. Male has nice correct slate legs, female has yellow legs. Should the pullet chicks have dark legs and the males have yellow? I'm really hoping so, because my barn cat had a definite preference for the yellow-legged chick and I'm down to all dark legged

 

[junebuggena]

If the Ameraucana is really a pure Ameraucana, then the female chicks should have white/pink foot bottoms.

 

[donrae]

If the Ameraucana is really a pure Ameraucana, then the female chicks should have white/pink foot bottoms.

How does that work? And what would the males have?

 

[junebuggena]

Pure Ameraucana have white skin with a blue or dark wash overlaid on the legs making slate legs. I'm not sure, but I think it's the white skin that's sex linked. I guess the only way to know if the yellow skinned chick was male, is if all the other chicks without yellow end up female. If you do end up a few males, then they didn't have the correct combinations of genes for sexlinking.
This is when chicken genetics start making my head hurt.

 

[birdbrain79]

Hey junebuggena,
Point is well taken. With hatchery stock the cocks could be carrying hidden recessive traits. Fortunately with hens what you see is what you get. Line breeding toward the hen will help set the dominate traits in homozygous form.

 

[Kev]

I've been reading about sex linking by down color, but I haven't read any posts discussing sex linking by leg color. It is possible to use roosters with dominate feather color to make sex links if they have recessive leg color to the hens dominant leg color. If your sexlinked hens have white legs you can breed a yellow leg rooster and get another generation of sexlinked offspring. If the rooster used has dominant feather color coupled with recessive leg color you could get another generation of sexlinked offspring from your multigeneration sexlinked hens.

White skin is not sex linked, though. It's a simple autosomal dominant over yellow skin. In your example of using white leg hen with yellow leg roo would simply result in all white legs- unless the hen happens to be carrying yellow skin then half of the offspring would have yellow legs.. in both sexes.

It is the Id gene that is sex linked and dominant. what it does is Inhibit the pigment in the Dermal layer of the skin. In other words, it prevents what causes green or slate legs(yellow and white body skin, respectively).

You can get sex linkage by breeding a white or yellow legged hen with a slate or willow legged rooster.

The problem is... you have to make sure the hen's legs are not yellow/white due to other genes such as barring. And Id normally has no effect if the bird is E or ER(black feather chickens such as australorps etc) so if you cross a white/yellow leg hen to a black legged black feather roo it would not show much if any sex linkage. Too many caveats.

And it is not always immediately recognizable on day old legs.. which is the main interest for using sex linked genes- easy sexing of day olds.

 

[Kev]

Speaking of leg color.....

I have a batch of accidental chicks that are splash Ameraucana male over Dark Cornish female. Male has nice correct slate legs, female has yellow legs. Should the pullet chicks have dark legs and the males have yellow? I'm really hoping so, because my barn cat had a definite preference for the yellow-legged chick and I'm down to all dark legged

That's a perfect example of caution of using leg color for sex linking. The cornish have the sex linked Id gene for yellow legs but the amer roo being E or ER would make all/most legs dark despite the Id in cockerels.

IF you got yellow legged chicks then that's interesting.... as amers are supposed to be pure for dominant white skin.. yellow is recessive... doing the math, it implies the roo was carrying yellow skin.

 

[donrae]

Thank you Kev, I was hoping you'd chime in!

I'll have to catch the rooster some night and check out his foot pads, I've never looked at them. He is "pure", as in from a correct b/b/s breeder, but was culled due to excessive red leakage she didn't want in her breeding program. Red leakage was fine with me, he had strong blue egg gene parents and is splash so fits my criteria perfectly.

I believe some of the chicks were yellow legged, or maybe a funky green. Momma was raising them in a tangle of blackberries and it was hard to see them well. We lost three and got them moved to a secure pen. All the survivors have dark legs (haven't checked pads) and look to be female, so I was hoping I could use this if I did this cross again. Not that I really intend to, I can't see the point of an Ameraucana/Cornish mix, except I can sell them as green egg layers

 

[Chickaddict44]

I posted earlier in this thread a pic of my chick Ellie who is now 4.5 months. A buff orpington x barred rock cross.