Have you read the first post in this thread? Just the first post, not the whole thread. I had to read it a few times before the light finally came on.
Sex- linked Information | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chickens
The way I remember it is that the father is generous and giving, sharing his genetics with all his offspring, while the mother is sexist and favors her boys. Her daughters get the short end of the genetic stick.
I'm joking but it might help you remember it. I agree, it is confusing, any help I can get remembering I'll take.
In a red sex linked cross the father only has gold, so each of his offspring gets gold. Silver is dominant over gold so if just one gene is silver the chick is silver. The mother gives a silver gene to her boys but nothing to the girls. So the boys wind up with both one dominant silver and one recessive gold so they show silver. The girls get a recessive gold from their father and nothing from their mother so they show gold.
But yours are backward to this. The father gives a dominant silver to both his boys and girls. The boys also get a gold from the mother while the girls get nothing from her. So the boys have one dominate silver and a recessive gold and show as silver. The girls have a dominant silver and no gold and also show as silver. Yours are not red sex links, you should not be able o tell the difference in sex at hatch.
Silver does not necessarily mean white. Another place it is confusing. Most of the Silver feathers will be white but on the boys the saddle and hackle feathers can sometimes have a yellow tint. The saddle and hackle feathers don't show up for several weeks or even months after hatch so you cannot see this at hatch. It's generally after the second juvenile molt. If you look at photos of a mature Delaware rooster the yellow saddle and hackle feathers are clear. A Light Sussex, not really. I've noticed in that genetic calculator if you create a boy that has one silver and one gold the "white" feathers show as yellow, not white. If he is pure for silver they don't. Genetically I'm not sure what is going on there. I am certainly confused on that.
So the bottom line. With a Light Sussex father and a Buff Orp mother you cannot tell sex by down color.
