Will i be able to tell the difference between the chicks?

[spruett386]

My question is, I assume this cross is a "sex link" but will I be able to tell the difference between the chicks? Will they all be "white" looking or will these "golden" males be noticably different? I only hatched two and it looks like their baby feathers coming in are "white"(silver? i.e., hens?). Or do "golden" roosters look white, too?

Gah, genetics is so confusing.

Dad is a Light Sussex and mom is a Buff Orp, for the record.

 

[nuthatched]

The males will be a stronger yellow, like a butterscotch color I think. females will have a lemony color but if there's any doubt, it will show up in the first feathers.

 

[spruett386]

Awesome! The first feathers are very white and the wing and tail pin feathers are growing super fast (usually indicates females) I think I have all females!

 

[spruett386]

This is immediately after hatch. I dohave any other pictures of the babies because I'm on vacation rn. We have a neighbor taking care of them though. Once they dried they were both that light lemony yellow. And the first feathers that emerged after a few days were white. I'll share pics when I get home of their development. They'll be a good week and a half old.

 

[NatJ]

I assume this cross is a "sex link" but will I be able to tell the difference between the chicks?

I do not think you will be able to tell the difference easily.

For useful sexlinks, the cross needs to happen the other way (gold father, silver mother).

Will they all be "white" looking or will these "golden" males be noticably different? I only hatched two and it looks like their baby feathers coming in are "white"(silver? i.e., hens?). Or do "golden" roosters look white, too?

Your cross is similar to the cross that produces Amberlink chickens:
https://www.myerspoultry.com/product-amber-link
If you look at the hen & rooster photos at that link, you will see that they are both mostly "white" with bits of color. Since you used Buff Orpingtons, the red/gold/brown shades may be even lighter on yours.

Also, your "golden" males are genetically the same as the "white" or "yellow" males of the common kinds of Red Sexlinks (Golden Comet, ISA Brown, etc.)
Example: https://www.myerspoultry.com/Product-Red-Sex-Link
See how one photo has red hens and a "white" rooster? That rooster is "golden" just like any male chicks from your cross. For useful sexlinks, you need the hens to be gold (like those sexlink hens.)

Amberlinks are silver rooster, gold hen. Red Sexlinks are gold rooster, silver hen. You can see that changing which is the parent makes a BIG difference in whether you can sex the chicks by color.

Note, the examples I found do not have any black feathers. Given the parentage, yours may have black fathers similar to the Sussex. I'm just using these examples to point out the gold/silver part of the color.

 

[Ridgerunner]

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.

 

[NatJ]

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.

I think it's trying to say that you don't get as clean a silver color when he's silver/gold as when he's pure for silver. But yes, it's definitely misleading: the genetics calculator makes this cross appear to be color-sexable, when in reality there will not be any useful amount of color difference at any age that matters.

 

[spruett386]

Here are the chicks at 2 weeks. I am guessing they're both female because they got those long wings and tail feathers super fast. Boys usually have stubby bobos for quite a while.

 

[-Olive-]

Here are the chicks at 2 weeks. I am guessing they're both female because they got those long wings and tail feathers super fast. Boys usually have stubby bobos for quite a while.

They are lovely. What app/website was that you used for the genetics please?

 

[spruett386]

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruisingMobile.html