Very confused about Black Star cross?

[junebuggena]

Those are hatchery 'brand' names. For backyard bred birds, they should be called black sexlinks.

 

[Jetblack2004]

Oh ok.
Thank you for the response!

-Jet

 

[speckledhen]

As to you buying RIRs and BRs to make your own black sex link, that can be done and will probably have much better longevity than a hatchery sexlink, but the BR MUST be the hen or it won't work. If you put a BR male over a RIR hen, all chicks will have barring and you won't be able to tell which is male and female reliably.

In that cross, a male BSL will have a head spot while the pullet will not. She also will grow up to be solid black with some white/gold on her chest area. The males will look like a badly barred Barred Plymouth Rock--sadly, I see the BSL males being sold a lot as Barred Rocks, but if you know the score, they are easy to spot.

There are many "trade names" for someone's sexlink crosses. Golden Comets, Red Stars, Cinnamon Queens, ISA Browns, Amberlinks, etc are the red/gold/brown sexlinks. Black Stars, Black Rocks, etc are the black sexlinks.

This is a good explanation of the sexlink phenomenom:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry////CGP/Sex-links/BRKSexLink.html

 

[Jetblack2004]

@speckledhen. Thank you for taking the time to write such a long response!

I did already know it has to be a cockerel with 'gold' genes over a hen with 'barrred' genes to get the sex-linked chicks. I have done the opposite of a Red-Sex-Link cross before, and the results were interesting. Both the males and the females come out like Light Sussex but with brown and speckled markings

I have seen pictures of BSL cockerels and It shouldn't be too hard to tell between the pure BR and the BSL cockerels. I will be careful when getting my BR chooks, though. In my area, people don't really bother trying to sell xbred cockerels.

Thank you for the link- the page is really useful.

-Jet