Sex- linked Information

[Kiki]

@Redhead Rae You seen this thread yet?

 

[Mosey2003]

I can't seem to find them, I'll message the lady I sold them to and see if she still has pictures.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are two criteria you need to make black sex links that can be sexed at hatch. The female has to be barred and the male cannot be barred. That way all males will have barring and none of the female chicks will be barred. A barred male will have a spot on the head at hatch, a not-barred female will not have that spot.

The second criteria is that you have to be able to see that spot at hatch. Some genetics allow you to see that spot pretty clearly. Some do not. If you use the crosses shown in the chart in the first post in this thread you will be able to see the spot. There are other combinations that will allow it not in the chart. With certain roosters a Creme Legbar or Delaware hen can be used to make a black sex link, but with several roosters you will not be able to see the spot at hatch. It's all about down color and patterns. They don't even have to bed black, its about seeing the spot at hatch. Once they feather out the males will be barred and the females will not, you can sex them then even if you cannot see it at hatch.

 

[Redhead Rae]

There are two criteria you need to make black sex links that can be sexed at hatch. The female has to be barred and the male cannot be barred. That way all males will have barring and none of the female chicks will be barred. A barred male will have a spot on the head at hatch, a not-barred female will not have that spot.

The second criteria is that you have to be able to see that spot at hatch. Some genetics allow you to see that spot pretty clearly. Some do not. If you use the crosses shown in the chart in the first post in this thread you will be able to see the spot. There are other combinations that will allow it not in the chart. With certain roosters a Creme Legbar or Delaware hen can be used to make a black sex link, but with several roosters you will not be able to see the spot at hatch. It's all about down color and patterns. They don't even have to bed black, its about seeing the spot at hatch. Once they feather out the males will be barred and the females will not, you can sex them then even if you cannot see it at hatch.

You forgot that the non-barred male can't be dominant white. I bred a leghorn/mystery cross roo to barred Dominique and Dominique cross hens, only one roo in 3 hatched with a spot. The other two were solid yellow as chicks. When their second feathers came in, you could see faint barring in the right light, but they were pure white.

The problem wasn't the hens. I used the same hens with a Black Cochin and a New Hampshire roo and all but one of 9 males was determinable at hatch. The 9th had tiny wisps of white on his head instead of a spot.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I did not forget anything. I said if you use the chickens in the chart it will work. Dominant white roosters or hens are not in that chart. With other chickens, roosters or hens, it might work or it might not. You were using a crossed rooster which makes it iffy but some crosses will work. The genetics have to be right for it to work, both which parent has barring and which parent does not, plus you have to be able to see the spot in the down.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Auto sexing isn't complicated to make.
You need barring. Yes any barred bird will work. Really all you need is the barring gene and only one time so the rest of the bird isn't so important.
The other part is a chipmunk striped down color.
With that chart the barred rock is used for barring and the brown leghorn for the chipmunk down. Cross the two so you have offspring with genes for barring and chipmunk down on the same chick. in the chart that's cockerel chicks only.
Now you need to continue the barring and get the down color back to two copies of chipmunk strip so it will breed true.
The cockerel chick has one gene for barring and one for non barred. He has one gene for chipmunk stripe and one gene for extended black from the barred rock.
Barring is dominate and he will give approximately 1/2 his chicks a barring gene and 1/2 he won't. Throw away all non barred chicks throw away all black chicks. The cockerel chick when bred to the chipmunk stripe leghorn will produce about 1/2 that will get his chipmunk stripe gene and half will get his extended black gene. The leghorn has two copies of chipmunk stripe so all chicks will get one copy from her.
All the chicks that get extended black will be black or black barred because extended black is dominate to wild type (chipmunk)
So now you have kept only males and females that are chipmunk and barred.
Only thing left is to breed them together to achieve the second gene for barring to the male chicks.
The chicks will produce all chipmunk striped barred chicks. All females are keepers and Autosexing. Male chicks will be about half with one copy of barring and 1/2 with two copies of barring. They be like barred rock males vs females. Some cockerels will be fairly dark looking. The double barred ones will be lighter since they'll have more color turned off because they have two barring genes. Keep the lightest cockerels they will be Autosexing. Now you have auto sexing in both sexes and good to go.
Like mentioned the key to what can be used is what will show the difference in the chipmunk stripe down and the faded chipmunk stripe in the cockerels.
I'll do a part two in a while to cover more about that.

 

[Mosey2003]

Here are the grown Buff Orpington over Barred Rock hens:

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Here are the grown Buff Orpington over Barred Rock hens:
View attachment 1284775 View attachment 1284776 View attachment 1284777

They are very attractively colored. Are they considered a black sex link? Do they lay a prolific amount of eggs and are they spent after 3-4 years like most sex links?

 

[Mosey2003]

They are very attractively colored. Are they considered a black sex link? Do they lay a prolific amount of eggs and are they spent after 3-4 years like most sex links?

They're a black sexlink, yes. They aren't that old yet, so I can't say when they'll be spent. She said they started laying early and often though. That's about all I know, I sold them to my former riding instructor.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Auto sexing is just like ridgerunner mentioned about sex links. Its about putting the right genes together but also about picking the pattern that it can be seen on.
It doesn't really matted what the adult chicken looks like just the down color of the chick. There's a lot of combinations that will work. Others won't and others will but not as clearly seen.
Wild type works best. Anything like gold duckwing, also know as black breasted red. A good dark brown (gold based) striped down is easiest but others can work. I've used silver duckwing they're the ones with grayish chipmunk instead of brown.
Also used RIR where normally the chicks are red with some stripes being visible but not like wildtypes show.
Wheaton can work but it is the hardest to see on. If the Wheaton you have are nicely striped it can work if your Wheaton are mostly solid with no stripes or hardly any stripe showing its not going to work since the pattern is already faded too much.
That's the key is to get something that can show a faded version easily.
You can also use different color genes in the mix. There's some on here working with duckwing pattern with lavender added and its working.
You can do blue duckwing but if your doing BBS it is probably not going to work with the splash.
Also if your trying to put something together there can be short cuts.
You can use like the chart posted and after the second cross it shows and I mentioned throwing away the brown striped non barred female chicks. You can save them and when you get your double barred male you can breed him to you non barred brown ones and the pullet offspring will be auto sexing. The cockerel chicks will not be because they will be back to single gene for barring.
You can also use an auto sexing rooster and breed him to a appropriate female and have auto sexing pullet chicks but same issue with cockerels being single barred.
You can easily use legbar rooster over brown leghorns.
There's other ways to get there then just the way that chart shows. You just have to get pure for your down color and pure for barring.
Its that second cross that stays simple or gets complicated. The chart makes it look simple because it forgot to list brown unbarred cockerels and it lumped black pullets, black cockerels, black barred pullets and black barred cockerels all in one group. With that chart to get those brown barred chicks its a 1 in 4 chance for pullet and 1 in 4 chance for the cockerel chick.
If you use a barred bird that is just normal looking black barred but its silver based then that second cross just doubled to twice the outcomes and twice the odds for you chicks. You'd be at 1 in 8 if you just wanted to work with brown chipmunk stripes and discard the grey striped silver based ones.
You can use birds with other genes involved and breed those out at that second cross also. The more genes you don't need or want that you bring into the first cross well drastically change the different amounts of various patterned chicks in that second cross.
Hope some of that makes sense and can help some.