White Rock with Silver Factor... where are they?

[stu3796]

So I'm crazy and want to "make" my own Golden Comets. I understand that they are obtained by crossing a white rock with silver factor hen with a New Hampshire rooster. I can find plenty of New Hampshire roosters and plenty of white rock hens... but how do I know if the hens have the "silver factor"? Does it really matter if they have the silver factor or will any white rock hen give me good results? Any help would be great. Thank you!!

 

[tadkerson]

White rocks are recessive white which hides all the other colors produced by genes the bird carries. If the white rocks carry extended black at the E locus and the gold genes they can not be used to sex chicks. The female white rocks need to be brown at the E locus and silver.

Tim

 

[stu3796]

tadkerson... thanks! Genetics class was a long time ago... but I get it. Now, does anyone know where I can find hens that have the silver factor? Also, am I correct in assuming that if I don't care if I can sex-link them by color at hatching, that I'm going to get the same quality of bird by using a "normal" white rock hen instead of one with the silver factor? Thanks!!

 

[stu3796]

Want to follow up with this question I asked awhile ago... how does one tell if a white rock hen has the "silver factor" in her genetics?

 

[tadkerson]

The only way you can tell is by doing a test cross. Cross a female with a RIR or New Hampshire or production red. Mark the chicks and see if the buff faced chicks become females and if the silver faced chicks become males. If the cross produces black chicks do not use the white rocks.

Tim

 

[Jack Speese]

I've wondered about this too, where you get silver factor white Plymouth rocks. In an ordinary white rock the white gene is dominant so you'd get perfectly good laying hens from such a cross, they just wouldn't have the sex-linked colors. But you can also get red sex links by breeding a Rhode Island White hen (Ideal Hatchery has those) or a Delaware hen (lots of hatcheries have those, they've become a popular breed in recent years) to a RRR or Hampshire Red rooster. I have a RRR rooster and some barred rock hens and I've always wanted to try this myself! Of course I'd get black sex links (black hens with golden neck feathers, roosters barred like their mother) from that cross, but it's the same idea.
And where these sex-linked crosses are hybrids, if you raised chicks from them again the pullet chicks will still be good laying hens, but they won't have the sex-linked colors.

 

[nicalandia]

I've wondered about this too, where you get silver factor white Plymouth rocks. In an ordinary white rock the white gene is dominant so you'd get perfectly good laying hens from such a cross, they just wouldn't have the sex-linked colors.

I belive the white rocks are recessive white not dominant white and most recessive white birds ara based on the dominant sex linked Silver(S) gene

if you raised chicks from them again the pullet chicks will still be good laying hens, but they won't have the sex-linked colors.

thats correct as the laying trait is a polygenic trait and not a single gene effect.

 

[Belmont Rooster]

Delawares also have the silver factor. I was in the hatchery business for several years and we used silver-factor White Rocks from Colonial Poultry Farm. I believe they are out of business now. I introduced our buff sex-link in 1985 (time flies) and our office manager named them Cinnamon Queen. Since Allen's closed, many other hatcheries have been offering a Cinnamon Queen. A competitor hatchery started offering a buff-sex link that he claimed to have obtained from a Columbian Plymouth Rock x Rhode Island Red. The silver factor in White Rocks (commercially) no doubt came from the Delaware. OH, FYI. The variety that many hatcheries are offering called Cherry Egger were also first named and offered by the Allen Hatchery...

 

[big spring]

good info. always want to know how the so called pure white rocks were used for sex links. i plan to buy delaware just because they lay huge eggs . i need them for bragging purposes. !