Sex-links---Help out the ignorant.

[Grampa with chickens]

Why would you want to breed for sex links? Whats the advantages?
Just curious.

 

[anngili]

I think there may be two reasons. I know the first reason is probably the prime one. As chicks, the male and female chickens' appearance are very different (hence the term "sex link") in color and sometimes in pattern. I think that eliminates the difficulties in sorting out the female egg layers from the roosters.
I think there is probably a second one but I may be wrong. One of the experienced chicken raisers here would know. I think that the sex link chicks have what's called "hybrid vigor". That means that the offspring usually do better than either one of the purebred parents do.

 

[joletabey]

From the little I know, I agree with anngili. Sexlinks are supposed to be superior egg layers for the first couple of years. I think I read somewhere here, though, that they taper off faster than a "pure" bred. ( Is that correct terminology?)

 

[pbjmaker]

I have been breeding my Black Copper maran roo over my cuckoo maran hen. This produces sex-link chicks. The pullets are black and the males are barred. I'm doing it because I want some solid black hens that lay super dark eggs. The egg color comes down from the rooster and he came from a really dark egg.

Also I can sell the extras with the confidence that people know exactly what they are getting.

I just started this - so the chicks are little and I will be waiting to see the actual egg color.

 

[PortageGirl]

Yes, the hybrid vigor is much touted by hatcheries, but I really believe it’s more for cost saving. Because hatcheries charge more for an order of say 25 all female chicks, than they can for a ‘straight run’ which is just the first 25 chicks they can pick up and put into a packing box, the sex link chicks can be easily sorted. It takes a lot of experience and a sharp eye to decide which little fuzzy yellow chick is male and which is female at that age...

With the sex-linked chicks, the males are yellow, and the females are clearly more reddish at one day old for example with Red Stars or Golden Comets. This is a great cost savings, but it’s really causing a loss of the old time breeds IMO which is why I try to keep some ‘real’ breeds around. I have some Golden Comets, (8 that I got from a friend) I like them, but they won’t breed true, their chicks will turn out to be who knows what.

pbjmaker's method at home is at least using closely related breeds, and she can choose to seperate and breed some true chicks if she wants, something the big hatcheries are doing less and less of.

I'm a little biased against how extensively this is being done as if you couldn't tell, I really like the heritage breeds and wish more could be done to save them, though I understand why hatcheries need to make money.

 

[The Gotfeather]

Hi pbjmaker, I would be interested to here how your egg colour results go as I am thinking abou marans at a later date.

Thanks for the posting Grampa with chickens as I would like to understand this better. If nobody chimes in I might have a search for some links on this.

I was told I had sex link rooster and I am curious if his off spring will be black sex linked as well.

Will try and look around later today.

 

[pbjmaker]

No - sex - link chickens do not breed true.