urgent! gold top

[NatJ]

I was not finished with the post and I wanted to edit it to make it more informative but then had to go to bed

Ah, that makes sense. I've wondered before about posts that disappear, so it's fun to finally know why. Thank you for mentioning it, because I was so busy thinking about feather colors I'd forgotten about leg colors.

You explain it much better than I could have anyway!

There have been plenty of people asking about sexlinks this summer, so I've been practicing

And I really like how you can pick the parents just by looking at them: the hen only has one Z chromosome so she cannot be hiding anything, and the rooster has two Z chromosomes but because he needs the recessive trait you can tell that he's not hiding anything either. So you can even pick barnyard mixes to breed sexlink chicks! That works for gold/silver, for barring, for dark/light skin (feet), and for slow/fast feathering. (Although for the feathering you do have to look when they're young, because you can't see it in the adults, and for the legs you have to watch for other causes of dark legs.)

I was doing some research on it as I have a silkie roo and some standard hens and I was thinking of crossing them and thought it would be interesting to create sex linked chicks if possible.

I like that idea!

I keep wondering why the hatcheries don't sell sex-linked Easter Egger bantams. Everyone wants sexed bantam pullets, and it would be so easy to pick through the birds in an Easter Egger flock and set up for either gold/silver or leg-color sexing!

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Ah, that makes sense. I've wondered before about posts that disappear, so it's fun to finally know why. Thank you for mentioning it, because I was so busy thinking about feather colors I'd forgotten about leg colors.



There have been plenty of people asking about sexlinks this summer, so I've been practicing

And I really like how you can pick the parents just by looking at them: the hen only has one Z chromosome so she cannot be hiding anything, and the rooster has two Z chromosomes but because he needs the recessive trait you can tell that he's not hiding anything either. So you can even pick barnyard mixes to breed sexlink chicks! That works for gold/silver, for barring, for dark/light skin (feet), and for slow/fast feathering. (Although for the feathering you do have to look when they're young, because you can't see it in the adults, and for the legs you have to watch for other causes of dark legs.)



I like that idea!

I keep wondering why the hatcheries don't sell sex-linked Easter Egger bantams. Everyone wants sexed bantam pullets, and it would be so easy to pick through the birds in an Easter Egger flock and set up for either gold/silver or leg-color sexing!

Do you know if the cross would work with grey legged hens as well? Thinking the cross with the Polish would be fun. They have gray legs with pink feet but they were born with orange legs!

 

[NatJ]

Do you know if the cross would work with grey legged hens as well? Thinking the cross with the Polish would be fun. They have gray legs with pink feet but they were born with orange legs!

Polish hen, silkie rooster? If the hen's legs are gray, that's probably "dark" for this purpose. And if both parents have dark legs, then so should all chicks, of both genders.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Thanks!