wondering about the breed

[josmardavtom]

This might be a pretty silly question but we did an experiment, a friend crossed a sexlink with buffs and we hatched them. very nice looking chickens. the problem is will
they lay eggs? they are about 20 weeks now and usually I would be seeing a few eggs by now from either straight breed. Then my friend had said that being part sexlink they might not be able to reproduce. Does that mean no eggs? We just sold 10 of the hens and we have about that many left and I would hate to go back to the guy and say oops we have a problem. Thanks for any help.

 

[Mrs. K]

Hens will lay eggs. So they will lay eggs eventually regardless of their breeding. Sex link hens are very good egg layers, and generally never go broody (although once in a while you get one who will) that is what makes them so popular, they are egg laying machines! The BO are layers also, not quite as good as the sex links, but are much more apt to go broody. Your new cross chicks will have traits from both sides. You may get a super layer with broody traits, or you may get one that does not lay that consistently, only time will tell, however that is, they will all lay.

The advantage of a pure breed animal, is that a person has a more accurate ability to predict what the traits will be, the color, size and shape of the bird, the color, size and shape of the egg is all known before hand. Reproduction is also an inherited trait, some breeds lay more eggs than others. When you have several crosses away from the pure breed, there is less predictability in the outcome of those traits.

MrsK

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Chickens are like dogs, where there are different breeds, but they are all the same species. Sex links are a cross between two different breeds, that allow people to tell by the color of the feathering at hatch, which are the males and which are the females. Their feathering is linked to their sex, that's where their name comes from. It's usually a barred breed, crossed with a non-barred breed. There are several different combos that are used by various hatcheries. When you breed a sex link to another breed, you are just adding a third breed into the mix.

They will lay eventually.