Who's the mama

[Matzwd]

We just had our first hatch, under a broody, five adorable fuzzy butts. I would like to know what you think about which chick is from whose egg. The rooster of all of them is a mille fleur d'uccle. All chick's have feathered legs. Options for hens are as follows. I *think* I had an egg from each: Mille fleur d'uccle, porcelain d'uccle, black bantam cochin, barred bantam cochin, silver sebright (with straight comb), and silver duckwing OEGB.

Chick 1 - looks like 100% mille:

Chick 2 - has muffs and chickmunk stripes. OEGB??:

Chick 3 has owlish face without muffs -- sebright or another OEGB? This one has me stumped:

Chick 4 - all black, very heavy foot feathering - black cochin?:

Chick 5 - yellow beak, heavily feathered feet, white spot on head - barred cochin?:

Thanks for your input!

 

[NatJ]

I think your guesses are probably right.

#3 probably has the Sebright mother (not a second chick from the OEGB)

#5 with the dot on the head should have barred feathers, and if so, is a male: barred mother, not barred father makes sexlinks with barred males and not-barred females.

 

[Matzwd]

$5 with the dot on the head should have barred feathers, and if so, is a male: barred mother, not barred father makes sexlinks with barred males and not-barred females.

This is fascinating to me. They are two weeks old now, and I still can't tell yet whether that one is barred. Would there be any others among them that would have sex link traits?

 

[NatJ]

Oops, meant to have a number sign instead of a dollar sign. It looks like I was putting a price on the chick!

Other sexlink traits:
Sebright mother and Silver duckwing mother should produce gold/silver sexlink chicks.

Pullets will be gold (red, brown, etc) with black markings.
Cockerels will be silver (white), also with black markings. Cockerels may grow up to have some red or yellow leaking through on the shoulders and hackles, but will show mostly white.

If I had to guess:
I think chick 2 is probably a female (brown down), and chick 3 is probably a male (yellow on the face rather than brown or gold.) But it will be more clear once they get their feathers.

Commercial sexlinks are deliberately selected to have colors/patterns of down where the color difference is obvious.

Oh, I just remembered: chick #1 could be pure Mille Fleur, or could have the Porcelain mother, and would look the same either way. Porcelain is genetically the same as Mille Fleur except for the lavender gene, which is recessive, so you won't see it in any chick from the cross.