Sex Linked Olive Eggers?

[Crazy for Chickens!]

I used Black Copper Marans. The males are black with copper hackles, copper saddle feathers, copper shoulder, and black wing triangle. I had a Black Marans cockerel that got taken by a predator a week and a half ago. I though that he would be better for the cross than a Black Copper because I don't like the leaky rust color that they make on the pullets when crossed. Either a Black Copper or Black male would work for the cross. You also could use a Silver Birchen Marans cockerel. The Birchen looks like a black copper only with off white plumage replacing all the copper areas. So...you don't need a solid black male just a male from a variety that produces black chicks down. If you are going for style points a solid black male might make a more attractive olive egger hen though. Some people like the red colors marbled through the black feather of their crosses. I don't. I think the solid colors (solid copper, solid black, solid white/silver) is more attractive than feathers that have a two colors melted through them.

Egg color can be difficult on olive eggers. Some come out a pale green color, some come out a khaki color, some come out a drab color, etc. I would start with the cockerel that is passing the darkest brown eggs possible. The best Olive egg color I have seen was from Angie Jones's flock in Schertz, Texas (@ fowlsRus). She did NOT have autosexing nor sex-links. But she used Marans and Americana for her foundation breeds. After the first cross she put all the hens laying bluer colored eggs back in with the Marans cockbird and all the ones laying darker eggs back in with the Americana cock for the second generation. She then selected for the colors that she liked best and breed forward to focus on egg color. I wish I had saved the photo from her ebay auction when I had the chance. They were really nice.

Thanks so much! You are so knowledgable. I will be looking back at this!

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

If bred to a CCL hen they will.
As you know its all about the barring and the males getting the head spot.
CCLs are wild type/ duckwing. Solid black and solid blue chickens are extended black. Black copper and blue copper are birchen. Both are dominate to wild type so their pattern will cover the wild type pattern and the chicks will hatch looking like marans chicks. The head spot will show best on black chicks but can be seen on blue chicks too.
Wheaton is recessive to wild type so Wheaton crossed to CCL will produce the chipmunk pattern of the CCL. You can see the head spot on them but not as well as with black chicks of course.
Wheaton wouldn't be my first choice but would work.

Thank you! See, I really would like to use Wheaten Penedesenca's. But it didn't know if that would work. But if it will, even if it's a little but harder to tell, it would be easier for me to get the Wheatens, because those are more common than Black, and the cross would be more colorful.

 

[oregonkat]

Pure bred barred cockerels have two copied of the sex-linked barring. One of the sex-linked chromosome from its father and one the sex-linked chromosome from its mother (two sex-linked chromosomes = a male chicken). A barred hen will just have one sex-linked barring gene on the sex linked chromosome from it father. She will the chromosome from her mother will not carry any of the sex-linked genes (one sex-linked and one non-sexlinked chromosome = a female chicken). When you cross a barred hen with a non-barred male 100% of the males will get a barring gene from the mother will none of the females will get the barring gene from the mother. None will get the gene from the none barred father so you end up with barred males and non-barred females. If you have a dark chicken down color the barring gene will express itself in the form of a white dot on the head. So white dot = males, not white dot = female. The males from that cross however will only have one barring gene so they will not be pure bred for the barring gene and will produce both barred and non barred offspring (where as the pure bred cockerel for barring will only produce barred offspring. So it isn't happenstance. If has to be done right for the sex-link to produce sex-able off-spring.

Thank you the information, I was going to ask about the off spring of the initial pairing and you answered the question already. So, another question, if the female off spring of the original pairing was mated to a barred cockerel her off spring would also display the sex-linking, yes? Black copper marans are considered a barred breed, yes? Thanks again for the time.

 

[wleigh1021]

I know this wasn't the question but I thought I'd just throw it out there....you can cross breed autosexing chickens and they will produce autosexing chicks as well. so you could also make auto sexing olive eggers with a CCL using something like a Bielefelder, Rhodebar, Welbar....

 

[GaryDean26]

Thank you the information, I was going to ask about the off spring of the initial pairing and you answered the question already. So, another question, if the female off spring of the original pairing was mated to a barred cockerel her off spring would also display the sex-linking, yes? Black copper marans are considered a barred breed, yes? Thanks again for the time.

There are two possibilities for a barred cockerel to black sexlink hen. One would be a pure bred barred cockerel. In that case the barred cockerel will pass barring to 100% of his offspring. The Sexlink hen will not have the barring gene so she won't pass it to any of her offspring. The result is that 100% of the offspring will carry just one barring gene and they will all have the white spot on their head so there will be no distinction between the males and the females.

The other possibility is that you use a barred cockerel from the initial pair. He will only have one barring gene so he will pass barring on to 50% of his offspring while the other 50% will be non-barred. Again the sexlink hen will not have the barring gene. So you ended up with both barred males and non-barred males and both barred and non barred females. Some of the offspring will have the white spot on their head but it could be either a males or a female. Some of the chicks will lack the head spot but again it could be a male or a female. The only way to produce sexable chicks is to use a barred hen and a non-barred cockerel.

 

[GaryDean26]

I know this wasn't the question but I thought I'd just throw it out there....you can cross breed autosexing chickens and they will produce autosexing chicks as well. so you could also make auto sexing olive eggers with a CCL using something like a Bielefelder, Rhodebar, Welbar....

I think this was discussed earlier in the thread so if I am repeating information just skip over this. The reason the autosexing works is that the pure bred cockerels have two barring genes and the pullet have just one. The double dosage of the barring gene on the cockerels make for both a head spot and diluting of the chick down. A single barring gene can create a head spot but is not enough to dilute the chick down. So if you are breeding a cockerel pure bred for barring with a barred hen then you get autosexing (as long as you can see the diluting of the chick down). Unlike the sexlinks where the offspring of the initial cross can not be used to create more crosslinks, the autosexing offspring can be used to create more autosexing offspring.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Thank you! See, I really would like to use Wheaten Penedesenca's. But it didn't know if that would work. But if it will, even if it's a little but harder to tell, it would be easier for me to get the Wheatens, because those are more common than Black, and the cross would be more colorful.

In theory if Wheaton is crossed with wild type which CCL are then the wild type pattern would cover up the Wheaton pattern because wild type is dominate to Wheaton.
The chicks should hatch looking like CCL chicks. As far as with the chipmunk pattern. The males would only have one gene for barring so they wouldn't be as diluted out looking like CCL chicks but would look like the female CCL chicks look.
Female chicks would just be the chipmunk pattern with no head spot.
So in theory they should be easy enough to sex.
In real life I've noticed that a lot of patterns that are supposed to cover other pattern often don't completely cover them. A hint of the recessive pattern shows through or it changes the dominate pattern some. The concern would be if the Wheaton does anything to the wild type pattern. If it lightens it it could make it hard to see the head spot nearly as well.
The barring gene will put the head spot on everything its just whether its distinguishable enough to be reliable to see.

 

[GaryDean26]

In theory if Wheaton is crossed with wild type which CCL are then the wild type pattern would cover up the Wheaton pattern because wild type is dominate to Wheaton....

Wild type is recessive to Wheaton. HERE are some photos of e+/eWh chicks from the Rhodebar thread. There can be a lot of leakage of recessive color patterns through dominant color patterns. There are three wild type x Wheaton chicks in the photo. Two of them came out with stripes (although not sharp in distinction) and one came out with out any stripes at all. When you get into "theory" on hybrids the plans is not always fool proof. Even in "pure" breeds their is a lot of variation do to the complexity of genetics. Line breeding reduces a lot of variation and brings uniformity. With out limiting the gene pool through line breeding there are lots of surprises. You also may want to scroll up from the photos to post 1112. It list many of the results from different crosses of barred birds with different color patterns.

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

I know this wasn't the question but I thought I'd just throw it out there....you can cross breed autosexing chickens and they will produce autosexing chicks as well. so you could also make auto sexing olive eggers with a CCL using something like a Bielefelder, Rhodebar, Welbar....

That's cool!

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

I wonder, if I find a good cross that produces good Olive Eggs, and I like the colors, (I might try several crosses,see what I like, see how the eggs turn out).this may be super complicated, and may not even be possible, but is there a way to find a cross, and have them breed true? Would you need to add more in, etc? I think it would be neat if you could produce a auto sexing olive Egger that bred true. Thoughts?