wyandotte rooster - mixing with different breed hens - what are my chicks???

[panipuri]

My little baby chicks are hatching under their Australorp broody mom hen today.

The eggs were a mix from these hens: barred rock, australorp and isa brown (a rhode island cross, like sex link). I have a golden laced wyandotte rooster. Been trying to find a chart or something to see what the offspring of such a mix is..

does anyone know?????

I can see 3 lil guys peeking out so far and funny enough they look very standard! - like a rhode island, a barred baby and an australorp - is this typical??

I was imagining more of a crazy speckled mix with that wyandotte blood! But then I know nothing about chicken genetics!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Congratulations. It is exciting, isn't it.

What I'd expect from the Barred Rock is that you will get black sex links. The chicks will have black down. The males will have a light spot on top of the head and the females will not. With the Australorp, the chicks will all be black, male and female. So black chicks with a spot on top of the head will all be male and will be barred when they feather out. The all black chicks may be male or female. With all of them, some red or gold may leak through in the feathers. What this means is that the basic color will be black but you might see some random red or gold feathers sprinkled here and there. When I made a somewhat similar cross with an Australorp hen and a Speckled Sussex rooster, the roosters all had that leakage but the pullets were solid black in adult plumage. But that is no guarantee that will be what you get as far as leakage.

The ISA Brown is a red sex link chick, so she has somewhat mixed up genes. Her offspring with that rooster could look different, but they should not be black. She should have the gold gene but I'm not sure of everything else in her genetics. I'd still think all her chicks would be basically reddish, but possibly dfferent shades of red. It is also possible they will have different patterns. But any reddish chicks you see should be from the ISA Brown.

 

[panipuri]

oh wow ok so even though it's a wyandotte Roo the barred babies will be considered black sex links???

I must have a little roo then because one of them has all the typical baby barred markings along with the white fuzz cap.

I do have a little yellow/light orange one with stripes - must be the isa's.

The other little chick is mostly black - and I can't really tell if its a female sex link, or an australorp - it has some slight white markings by its beak (but so did my australorp chickens when they were chicks).

Hopefully I will get some good pics to post very shortly.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Remember, it being a sex link has nothing to do with how it would lay. Well, that one with the spot will be a rooster, so I would not expect it to lay very well anyway. But in general.......

The genes that make them a sex link has nothing to do with how they lay. The sex links you get from hatcheries lay well because their parents are from flocks that lay well. If you take a rooster from a flock of GLW that lay well and cross him with a BR hen from a flock that lays well, you will get sex linked chicks that lay well. But if you took a rooster from the same flock or BR and a hen from the same flock of GLW, the chicks would not be sex links but they would lay equally well.

The hatcheries help spread the myths about the laying abilities of sex links because many sell commercial laying chickens as sex links. These lay extremely well.

But, yes, I think the genetics that make them sexable at hatch are a lot of fun. I've never done the black sex links with the barring but I've hatched some red sex links.

 

[panipuri]

Ok. I guess I didn't even know about them being great layers actually, as a breed - have never owned any.

I was under the impression it took a RIR roo and barred hen to make a black sex link / black star ... how does the wyandotte fit in genetically?

Thanks for all the great info!

 

[panipuri]

So though it's a wyandotte (and not a RIR roo) it's technically considered a black sex link chick?

here are some pics maybe it will help:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/631909/9-new-baby-chicks-hatched-on-day-24-pics#post_8460204

 

[Ridgerunner]

Read the first post in this thread. Down somewhere maybe midway in the first post is a list of breeds you can use to make black sex links. That list does not include all of them, yet you can see how many can be used.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

 

[panipuri]

awesome thank you so much

 

[Ole rooster]

Ridgerunner has helped me a lot. With my chicks my rooster is also a GLW. One of my BO's hatched out 6 chicks the 21st of Dec which I think were all BO eggs. One may have been from the GLW hen. 4 were born with the buff color. 2 were red. 3 has a the rose comb. One looks like a P comb and 2 a single comb. I would say their genetics are all screwed up.