Trying to identify my chicks

[teachag]

Hi! This is my first post on this board. I am an Ag teacher and we have recently hatched out 35 chicks from 3 different flocks. We know the breeds but now we need help identifying which chicks are what. We have a pretty good idea but would like some reassurance. Here is what we have
Ameraucana
Black Jersey Giant
Black Sex Link x Ameraucana
White Leghorn x Ameraucana
Rhode Island Red x Red Comet

Also what color eggs would the white leghorn x Ameraucana produce and will the RIR x RC be sex linked too?

Here are a few picks and what we have concluded it is.

Black Jersey Giant?


Black Sex Link x Ameraucana?

RIR x Red Comet female? I have a few solid white/light yellow ones that I think are the males.


Ameraucana?


White Leghorn x Ameraucana? It has a brown dot on the head. There are a few white/light yellow ones that have one or two small brown markings on head or back.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

First of all : Hi!

It is going to be pretty hard to tell what chicks are mixed with what at this "fluff" age. The Ameraucana ( or more likely Easter Egger) mixes can have beards or green legs but they don't always get those traits so its not super reliable. If any chicks do have green legs or beards, then they do have at least 1 EE parent.

An Ameraucana X Leghorn should lay blue eggs.
An Easter Egger X Leghorn can lay blue,green,brown, or pinkish. An EE is a bird with a lot of Ameraucana in its ancestry that also has brown and white egg layers mixed in there as well. Most hatcheries actually sell EEs but market them as the purebred Ameraucana. So anything having to do with EE is a SURPRISE! egg color and feather color included

Rhode Island Red x Red/Golden Comet (Red Sex Link) will not be sexed linked. In order for a red sex link, the father must be red and the mother must be white/silver. Since the Red Sex Link carries both red and white, the resulting chicks will most likely be red, maybe some will feather out similar to her coloring, but there will be no way to predict gender with this cross.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

First of all : Hi!

It is going to be pretty hard to tell what chicks are mixed with what at this "fluff" age. The Ameraucana ( or more likely Easter Egger) mixes can have beards or green legs but they don't always get those traits so its not super reliable. If any chicks do have green legs or beards, then they do have at least 1 EE parent.

An Ameraucana X Leghorn should lay blue eggs.
An Easter Egger X Leghorn can lay blue,green,brown, or pinkish. An EE is a bird with a lot of Ameraucana in its ancestry that also has brown and white egg layers mixed in there as well. Most hatcheries actually sell EEs but market them as the purebred Ameraucana. So anything having to do with EE is a SURPRISE! egg color and feather color included

Rhode Island Red x Red/Golden Comet (Red Sex Link) will not be sexed linked. In order for a red sex link, the father must be red and the mother must be white/silver. Since the Red Sex Link carries both red and white, the resulting chicks will most likely be red, maybe some will feather out similar to her coloring, but there will be no way to predict gender with this cross.

x2.
I can help you ID the Leghorn crosses--every white Leghorn cross will be white, perhaps with a dot or two here and there. The gene for that white in white Leghorns is extremely dominant and will cover up any other color contributed by the other parent. Also, look for pea combs and fluffy cheeks. Those are signs of Ameraucana parentage --the blue egg gene and the pea comb are very close together on the chromosome and over 90% of the time they are inherited together. The fluffy cheeks are also linked to the blue egg gene, and they may have willow legs, although that's not linked as closely. If your Ameraucanas were actually EEs (and it seems like most are, any more) then that confuses the genetics somewhat and you'll have to look for those pea combs to determine whether or not the chicks have probably inherited the blue egg gene.

 

[teachag]

Thank you so much!

So...if I had EE's (instead of Ameraucanas) should my eggs have been blue, green, etc? All of my egg colors were brown or white.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Ameraucana only lay blue eggs, while EEs usually lay green or blue with a few laying brown or pinkish.

If your eggs were only brown and white, it is possible that some brown ones could be EE, but most EE do lay green.

Looking at the pictures of the chicks you've provided, nothing is screaming EE mixes to me. The striped chick could possibly be one, but we would need a better face shot of it.

 

[teachag]

There were some that were more pink than brown looking.

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

I have found that my Barred Rocks also have a pinkish tint to the brown. Was the rooster possibly EE?

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Thank you so much!

So...if I had EE's (instead of Ameraucanas) should my eggs have been blue, green, etc? All of my egg colors were brown or white.

If you thought you had any purebred Ameraucana chicks, then you do not, since you had no blue eggs. All Ameraucanas lay eggs of some shade of blue, it's a requirement of the breed. So, to have Ameraucana offspring, the eggs would have had to be laid by an Ameraucana hen, and would be blue.

If your Ameraucana/white Leghorn cross was an Ameraucana male over a white Leghorn female (a very common cross), then of course all the eggs would be white since the rooster covering a hen has no effect on the color of eggs that hen lays, but the offspring would all lay blue eggs because of the blue egg gene contributed by the rooster. An Ameraucana over a brown egg laying hen would make offspring that lay some shade of green egg.

If you had an EE (instead of an Ameraucana) male over white and brown egglaying hens, then whether or not the offspring will lay blue or green eggs will depend on a. if the EE carried the blue egg gene in the first place, since you can't tell 100% with male EEs, b. whether or not he carried one or two copies of the blue egg gene if he did, and whether or not he passed a copy of the blue egg gene to the offspring.

Since you are in a classroom situation, this is a good opportunity to teach some basic genetics. Egg color genetics for white and blue shells is fairly basic. The brown coating that makes brown and green eggs is caused by many genes, so it's a bit more advanced, but it can be simplified to this:
Blue + no brown = blue
Blue + brown = green
White + no brown = white
White + brown = brown