Bielefelder mix chicks- auto sexing?

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

So my chick with the darker markings on the head seems like it has a be a pullet. The more muddled chick does not have any obvious white spot, but does have some patches of silvery type down on the head (not quite where the head spots should be). So I'm thinking female for this one, too, as @MysteryChicken already suggested. But I'm feeling a little less confident with this one.

Anyone else have have opinions about how accurate this headspot is - particularly on lighter downed chicks? I've read that some of it has to do with breeding and genetics and birds that are bred to be more obvious to sex as chicks- whereas birds bred for other reasons (like mine) may be harder to determine/less accurate due to smaller/camoflaugued headspots (sort of Like @pipdzipdnreadytogo mentioned). My Bieles are hatchery quality (Hoovers) and my roosters are random homebred mixes. One roo is black and one is (I think) splash.

I also have a semi of off-topic question and I have no idea if anyone knows the answer- do the big hatcheries still vent-sex their auto sexing chicks? In particular the breeds that are a little less obvious like the Bieles or the legbars?

Autosexing breeds like Bieles and Legbars can get a bit tricky to determine the sex of at hatch if the autosexing trait isn't well selected for, but it's mainly in that you get more chicks that kind of fall in a gray area of could go either way. You select for better autosexing traits by just not keeping the ones that are more ambiguous and only breeding the ones that are obviously male or female.

Mixes that are sexlinked crosses, those sexlinked genes will always be inherited a specific way, it just doesn't work, or not as well, when you add certain genes that cause chick down colorations that make it hard to tell whether the gene was inherited or not. As an example, if you have a non-barred dominant white rooster that you cross to a barred hen, the male offspring will inherit barring and the female offspring will not, but male or female they will also inherit dominant white, which makes the chick down entirely or almost entirely yellowish or white, so the head spot is simply not visible. That, of course, is an extreme example, but pretty much any chick down coloration that is not black on the head can result in the barring head spot either being faint or simply not visible at all.

There is no improvement of sexing quality for the next generation in such crosses because they are just that, one-time crosses. You can't select for better sexing because crossing the resulting offspring of the original cross will not make more sexlinks anyway. In order to produce sexlinked crosses that are reliably sexable at hatch by these traits, you have to use birds whose genes will not result in chick down colorations that obscure the trait at hatch. I hope that makes sense!


As far as whether the hatcheries vent sex their autosexing breeds, I have no clue, but that is an interesting question

 

[NatJ]

As far as whether the hatcheries vent sex their autosexing breeds, I have no clue, but that is an interesting question

I have read that at least some hatcheries do vent-sex the autosexing breeds, because that avoids problems with chicks that aren't clearly the male or the female coloration, and it may sometimes be easier to have the vent sexers do those chicks too than to train someone else to recognize the correct traits.

It probably varies from one hatchery to another, and a hatchery might change from one year to another as well (for example, a change in how many vent-sexers they can employ would cause a change in whether it is worth handling the autosexing breeds differently.)

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

I hatched another Biele mix a few days ago. This one is lighter than the 2 previous ones. But I don’t think I see a white head spot, so it’s probably a girl, right? Can anyone else see something I can’t?

 

[NatJ]

I hatched another Biele mix a few days ago. This one is lighter than the 2 previous ones. But I don’t think I see a white head spot, so it’s probably a girl, right? Can anyone else see something I can’t?

I do not see a headspot on that chick, but for chicks with dark markings on the head like that, I do not trust that a headspot would actually be visible. It seems that "dark marking" can over-ride "light headspot" when the down is getting colored.

So I would wait until the chick grows some wing feathers, and look for whether there is barring in them (male) or no barring (female).

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

So I would wait until the chick grows some wing feathers, and look for whether there is barring in them (male) or no barring (female).

These chick’s feathers have pretty wild color patterns. Is there a way to tell if the stripey wings are barring or just loud chick pattern?

This isn’t a Biele mix, but is it barred?

 

[NatJ]

These chick’s feathers have pretty wild color patterns. Is there a way to tell if the stripey wings are barring or just loud chick pattern?

This isn’t a Biele mix, but is it barred?

I think that is just loud chick pattern. Barring usually makes white lines that run across the feather from one side to the other. In the wings, I think I'm seeing a white dot at the tip of each feather, then various black/white speckledy patterns in the rest of it. (It looks a lot like what the mottling gene can cause, but I do not really think it's mottling. I've seen too many chicks with similar patterns that grew up to be quite different patterns, and obviously un-mottled.)

The feathers in the shoulder area do look a lot like they have barring, but the barring gene should make effects all over the whole chick, not just on the shoulders.

You probably will not know for sure until the chick grows enough to get the adult pattern in the feathers, but I am fairly confident that chick is not barred. If I turn out to be wrong, definitely let me know so I can do better in future!

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

You probably will not know for sure until the chick grows enough to get the adult pattern in the feathers, but I am fairly confident that chick is not barred. If I turn out to be wrong, definitely let me know so I can do better in future!

I will be sure and let you know. I expect this chick to be splash. Dad is splash. Mom is a white EE with some faint patterning/lacing. I don’t know what her color would be called. This pair has produced other splash offspring. They looked similar to this chick, but not as loud.

 

[NatJ]

I will be sure and let you know. I expect this chick to be splash. Dad is splash. Mom is a white EE with some faint patterning/lacing. I don’t know what her color would be called. This pair has produced other splash offspring. They looked similar to this chick, but not as loud.

Splash is two copies of the blue feather gene, and it is a dilution of black.
The chick in the photo looks (to me) like it has actual black, or possibly a very dark blue, in its coloring.

Do you have a picture of the father? I'm getting curious to see how he looks. Maybe the mother as well.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

This is the chick’s [most likely] dad, Citronella. He’s a home hatch mix breed. I think he’s splash, but could be wrong. His mom is blue, and paternal grandmother was blue, too. I suspect he got 2 copies of the blue gene which becomes splash (if I understand this correctly). His body is white. His tail is blue, white, and black. His wings are either dark slate blue or black (can’t tell) with red leakage. Do you think he’s something other than splash?

Mom is Derby, an EE from Mt Healthy. She’s mostly white but has some light buff or fawn colored lacing on her chest.

Derby and Citronella have 3 offspring that are 4 months old. Two are blue and 1 is splash (or what I think is splash- looks like Citronella). I’m assuming Citro is the dad because he and Derby spend a lot of time together, but it’s possible Citronella’s dad could also be the sire of the chick.

 

[NatJ]

This is the chick’s [most likely] dad, Citronella. He’s a home hatch mix breed. I think he’s splash, but could be wrong. His mom is blue, and paternal grandmother was blue, too. I suspect he got 2 copies of the blue gene which becomes splash (if I understand this correctly). His body is white. His tail is blue, white, and black. His wings are either dark slate blue or black (can’t tell) with red leakage. Do you think he’s something other than splash?

I think Citronella is probably blue, with large areas of silver, and some red leakage in the wings.

So he could give either a blue gene or a not-blue gene to the chick.

Of course I could be wrong. I sometimes have trouble sorting these things out

Mom is Derby, an EE from Mt Healthy. She’s mostly white but has some light buff or fawn colored lacing on her chest.

For Derby, I'm having a bit of trouble deciding. I'm pretty sure I see lots of silver, but I can't decide whether the darker bits are blue or lavender. If they are blue, then chicks from her could have black, blue, or splash in their coloring. But if she has lavender, that is caused by a recessive gene, so her chicks would not be expected to show any effect. The "buff or fawn" you mentioned in the chest is a fairly common thing in hens, although it is often a brighter color. But that might be another point in favor of her having lavender, because lavender dilutes both black and red shades to pale colors, while blue only affects black and leaves the reds alone.

I do not think any of them are splash (=2 blue genes.)
They are definitely pretty, but they are the kind of colors that don't have convenient names