Whelp…. Winter is coming but i hatched eggs anyway.

[LtDanFan]

so i hatched eggs that were given to me because i wanted white egg layers to round out my multicolored basket and i threw in a few of my eggs since i had room in the incubator.
My roo: pure bred crested cream legbar. My hens: olive eggers, BYM, pure bred CCl, Easter eggers. I know there are some that i will just have to wait, grow up and feed before i can tell if they are Roos, but there are a few i have questions about.
The dark ones i am pretty sure are CCl pullets. The lighter ones i am not sure and the ones with dots, can i assume they are male given their likely parentage? Here’s a smattering of what i got…..
If it matters these chicks hatched from blue eggs or olive eggs. I think blue circled ones are pure CCL’s because they look the same (which i have CCL hens and a roo), I’m more curious about the others. If there’s a way to tell with CCL mixes. I think i have a few more Roos this time around cause many have spots on their heads, despite the body color, but am curious about opinions on these ones. I can post the spotted heads later if need be.

 

[JedJackson]

Since the father is double barred, all of his offspring will have at least one barring gene. It may or may not show up as a head spot on striped chick down. Really only pure Legbars can be sexed according to the usual autosexing methods, but I don't see any way at this stage to tell the pure Legbars from the rest of the striped chicks.

 

[LtDanFan]

So it’s possible that the ones with the stripes AND a head spot may be female if the hen was one of my non CCL hens? That actually gives me hope. For what it’s worth, the olive eggers I have seem to be CCL crosses as they have crests and kind of rosy breasts but they dont quite have the same coloring as my pure bred CCL hens. I have a feeling from what i know of egg shell color genetics that i will end up with a lot of green and blue layers. Hopefully a white one or two in the mix, though as that’s the original reason i even hatched out this time of year.

 

[JedJackson]

So it’s possible that the ones with the stripes AND a head spot may be female if the hen was one of my non CCL hens? That actually gives me hope. For what it’s worth, the olive eggers I have seem to be CCL crosses as they have crests and kind of rosy breasts but they dont quite have the same coloring as my pure bred CCL hens. I have a feeling from what i know of egg shell color genetics that i will end up with a lot of green and blue layers. Hopefully a white one or two in the mix, though as that’s the original reason i even hatched out this time of year.

Yes, they should all have head spots because they will all have at least one copy of the barring gene. But the spots sometimes don't show up well on certain chick fluff patterns. They can though. That's why I say there is no way to tell gender on these yet.