Sex- linked Information

[ShrekDawg]

I'm not sure if he would because are rangers hybrids? I don't really know much about them but I don't think hybrid birds can make them. But that might just be other sex links can't make them. The girls should be good though. At least the delaware. I think white rocks aren't recommended for one reason or another, i forget the exact reason but i think it mentions it in the article. I think it maybe makes it harder to sex or something. I don't know. The Delaware would work though and not sure about the male

 

[donrae]

I have a Pioneer (Dixie Rainbow, Freedom Ranger) Rooster who is a Mostly red Crele. All of the pioneers were some color of red or gold. I am assuming he would qualify to produce sex links with my White Rocks and Delware hens?

I think as long as you go with the red vs silver to sex the chicks, you should be okay. Since the rooster is barred, and the Delaware is barred, and the Rocks often carry hidden barring, expect to have a lot of barred chicks, and that won't be sex linked at all. But silver should be male, and gold should be female.

 

[varidgerunner]

Does anyone know anything about breeds that are pure but whose chicks are naturally sex-linked? In other words, you can get chicks that you can tell apart without making a cross? I always wondered why this trait wasn't incorporated into more commercial breeds.

 

[Ravynscroft]

Does anyone know anything about breeds that are pure but whose chicks are naturally sex-linked? In other words, you can get chicks that you can tell apart without making a cross? I always wondered why this trait wasn't incorporated into more commercial breeds.

Sex-links by definition are only sexable in 1 generation of hatching... you want autosexing breeds...
Commercially, they want people to buy new batches each year instead of breeding their own so sex-linked is much more popular in the commercial industry... also, sex-linked is easier to turn out in mass quantity than autosexed...

 

[donrae]

Does anyone know anything about breeds that are pure but whose chicks are naturally sex-linked? In other words, you can get chicks that you can tell apart without making a cross? I always wondered why this trait wasn't incorporated into more commercial breeds.

Agree with Ravyn, what you're looking for is an auto sexing breed. Most of them are based on the barring gene, so look for breeds with -bar in the name. Rhodebar, Legbar, etc.

 

[BaileyMChicks]

I'm not sure if this is stupid or not, but could you take a red cochin banty rooster and cross it to a barred cochin banty hen and get black sexlinked chicks?

 

[BaileyMChicks]

Because in the first post thingy about all this, it talked about different breeds but not Cochin bantys. And from my understanding the rooster must not be barred and the hen has to be. And red roosters work best. So wouldn't this work?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Never be afraid to ask a question. Sometimes we refer back to the first post as a learning experience, so maybe you can learn better to do this yourself, but no question is stupid. We all have to start somewhere and it sounds like you are trying to understand.

The charts are not all-inclusive either. In the charts, every rooster on the left will make a sex link with every hen on the right. There are too many color/patterns and breeds to include all of them worldwide. Plus some hens will make a sex link with some roosters but not all hens or roosters in the list so you can’t list them. For example a Delaware hen has both silver and barring. If you cross a Delaware hen to a red rooster you will get a red sex link so you can list her in the red sex link chart. But if you cross her with a black rooster the gold/silver is hidden in the black down but you will get a black sex link. Since all the roosters in the black sex link chart or not black, you cannot list the Delaware hen.

There are two requirements to getting a sex linked chick. First the parents have to be set up genetically so he hen has a dominant sex linked trait and the rooster is pure for the recessive side of that trait. Since the hen only gives her sex linked genes to her sons, the males get the dominant gene. The rooster gives all his offspring the recessive trait.

The next part is that you need to see that trait at hatch. This is often the hard one. In the case of the black sex link, you need to see the spot on the heads. With different down colors and patterns that’s not always possible even if the barring gene is set up right. If the down is mostly light colored it can easily mask the spot.

You don’t actually need the chick to be black for it to be a black sex link. It’s possible to have a blue or red chick and still see the spot. But black usually works so well that black is usually used. Black roosters are usually great to use to make black sex links. But there are different ways to make black so that’s not always a given either.

Assuming your bantam hen is black barred and with the red rooster not barred you have a real good chance to make a black sex link. But there are no guarantees. Is the hen actually pure for black or is she possibly split for black with something else? Will your red rooster’s genetic make-up mess up the down pattern to the extent that you can’t see the spot, especially when mixed with whatever the hen has?

It sounds like your bantams might be crosses. That doesn’t mean it won’t work, just that it is a little less likely. The only way to find out is to try.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Oh yeah, sorry, didn't mean to make people afraid to ask :/

 

[donrae]

I'm not sure if this is stupid or not, but could you take a red cochin banty rooster and cross it to a barred cochin banty hen and get black sexlinked chicks?

This should work, yes. I'm actually wait listed for those breeds to try this cross next spring. We've caught the bantam cochin bug here...well, my Honey has

. So we'll be experimenting with different varieties and doing some sex-linking.