What is the best egg laying sex link that is also the easiest to identify male or female when they are born/chicks ?

[leghornmania]

I love the egg laying abilities of my white leghorns but do not like how hard it is to identify male/female when they are chicks. Id like to start breeding sex links that have a reliable indicator of their sex during the baby chick stages, and id like the hens to lay at least as good as pure breed white leghorns and also be as efficient , as far as white leghorns not needing as much food, to still be great egg layers. I am not interested in meat birds and am fine with either brown eggs or white eggs. Ty

Can you also tell me, what rooster breed and hen breed are needed to create the sex link you recommend ?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Barred Rocks and Cuckoo Marans both are easy to identify at hatch because of the barring the males will have a white dot on their head. My Barred Rock and Maran are also very consistent good layers.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Barred Rocks and Cuckoo Marans both are easy to identify at hatch because of the barring the males will have a white dot on their head. My Barred Rock and Maran are also very consistent good layers.

Females will also have a spot because they have a barred gene

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Black sexlinks are the ones where only males have a white spot and females are a solid black

 

[leghornmania]

I was wondering if there is a sexlink that can be created by crossing a white leghorn hen, with some other breed of rooster, that would create a easy to identify sexlink at birth, and create a egg layer as good as purebreed white leghorn is.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Females will also have a spot because they have a barred gene

I should have clarified that they usually have different spots on their heads. Female has small more defined dot and males is larger less defined. Also with males being often a little lighter even as chicks.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I should have clarified that they usually have different spots on their heads. Female has small more defined dot and males is larger less defined. Also with males being often a little lighter even as chicks.

Only if that trait is maintained. If you get a dozen hatchery barred, some males and some females will have spots that don't match how they should

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I love the egg laying abilities of my white leghorns but do not like how hard it is to identify male/female when they are chicks. Id like to start breeding sex links that have a reliable indicator of their sex during the baby chick stages, and id like the hens to lay at least as good as pure breed white leghorns and also be as efficient , as far as white leghorns not needing as much food, to still be great egg layers. I am not interested in meat birds and am fine with either brown eggs or white eggs. Ty

Can you also tell me, what rooster breed and hen breed are needed to create the sex link you recommend ?

I would suggest the Red/gold sex link being done with white leghorn and RIR.. for your specifics.. that is RIR males over Lehgorn females.. the males will be white and the females will be orange/buff.

Eggs will be brown.

Images of chicks from google..

WHile I agree about black sex links being the easiest to identify.. with males having a white spot and females having solid black heads.. I can't see production being on par with leghorns... Closest being maybe RIR x barred rock.

A quick write up with explanations of the crosses..
https://poultry.extension.org/artic...an-introduction/sex-linked-traits-in-poultry/

Alternbatively.. not many breeds lay as well as leghorn or as effeciently.. You MIGHT be able to get pure leghorn sex links using white females and red Leghorn.. Looks like males are available..

https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/red_leghorns.html

Nice little silver/gold chart in this link..
https://poultrykeeper.com/poultry-breeding/sex-linked-crosses-and-their-offspring/

One note.. maybe white rocks and white leghorns are not ALL silver based?? so it's possible test mating may need to be done to verify??

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Only if that trait is maintained. If you get a dozen hatchery barred, some males and some females will have spots that don't match how they should

You know I have heard that, but so far picking out barred breeds at even tractor supply or Orsheln I have been able to sex them just fine.

 

[NatJ]

I was wondering if there is a sexlink that can be created by crossing a white leghorn hen, with some other breed of rooster, that would create a easy to identify sexlink at birth, and create a egg layer as good as purebreed white leghorn is.

Probably not.
There are several combinations of genes that can be used to create white chickens. Only some of them work for breeding sexlinks.

In the USA, White Leghorns bought from hatcheries usually have a set of genes that does not work for making sexlinks. No matter what you cross them to, you tend to get white chicks with a few black spots here and there (the black spots are not gender-specific in any way.)

I would suggest the Red/gold sex link being done with white leghorn and RIR.. for your specifics.. that is RIR males over Lehgorn females.. the males will be white and the females will be orange/buff.

It probably won't work.
If you want the genetic reason:
White Leghorns often seem to be
E/E (Extended Black)
I/I (Dominant White)
So every chick gets E (makes it black all over) with I (turns the black to white, although it may miss a few bits.)

The White Leghorn hen may be genetically silver, but the black-turned-white makes it impossible to tell that, or to tell which of her chicks have gold vs. silver.

Id like to start breeding sex links that have a reliable indicator of their sex during the baby chick stages, and id like the hens to lay at least as good as pure breed white leghorns and also be as efficient , as far as white leghorns not needing as much food, to still be great egg layers. I am not interested in meat birds and am fine with either brown eggs or white eggs.

Some of the commercial sexlink hybrids pretty much have those traits.
The problem is that the companies with the parent stock will not sell it.

If you pick a set of breeds from a hatchery that sells to the public, you will probably get chickens that don't lay as well (they might still be pretty good, but not AS good.)

There are two basic ways to make sexlinks:
not-barred rooster/barred hen
gold rooster/silver hen

For the one with barring, the hen can be any breed with white barring on any background color. Examples include:
Bielefelder (probably bigger than you want)
Cream Legbar (produces blue eggs, I'm unsure how well they lay)
Barred Rock
Cuckoo Marans
Production Black
California Gray
Delaware

For the father of the chicks, it needs to be a rooster with no white barring.
Rhode Island Red is used as the father breed in many commercial sexlink crosses. RIR or any similarly colored breed would work well with the black-based hens. For lighter colors of hens, I would suggest using a solid black rooster, so the chicks will be a color that contrasts strongly with the light headspot on males. Maybe a Black Minorca?

For gold/silver sexlinks, you need a mother with silver and a father with gold. But those chicks are likely to be a little harder to sex than the black-with-barring style, so I suspect you wouldn't be as happy with them.