Bress/Leghorn Cross Question

[Kenny_]

https://www.canadianpoultrymag.com/100th-anniversary/research/scientific-crossbreeding-12161

Specifically, this sentence:
The La Bresse Cock which has dark shanks has been found to give excellent results mated to the White Leghorn or White Wyandotte hen.

Has anyone on this site mated an American Bresse with a leghorn of any type or the white leghorn, and did you like the results? I'm incubating some Bresse currently, and I really would like to do the leghorn cross eventually but was curious if anyone else had done it already.

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[rebrascora]

Hi.

I haven't ever had any Bresse so I cannot speak from experience but I read some of the paper you linked.
I'm not sure if you are aware but that is an historical paper/article from 1929 and is talking about the 3 types of cross breeding for sex linkage characteristics ie producing hybrids that can be sexed at hatch. Essentially.... black sex links using a solid coloured male over a barred female, red sex links using a gold cock over a silver based hen and sexing by shank colour using a dark shanked rooster and a light shanked hen. According to the article, this latter cross breeding does not often produce a reliable means of sexing the chicks because the colour difference of the shanks at hatch is not obvious enough. However, the quote you mention is, I believe, referring to excellent results in being able to correctly identify the sex of chicks at hatch from the Bresse/leghorn cross, rather than suggesting that the cross bred bird is itself "excellent".

Since the Bresse is a meat bird and the leghorn is a layer, you will get a hybrid that should be a reasonably good layer but with more meat on it than a leghorn... ie a dual purpose white bird. Apart from being able to sex it at hatch by it's shank colour, I'm not sure you would gain anything over say a White Rock or Rhode Island White although many feel that being able to sex chicks at hatch is a huge bonus.

So, if your goal is to produce sex links then your Bresse roo over Leghorn hens should give you chicks that can reliably be sexed at hatch by their leg colour..... as long as he doesn't injure the hens during the mating process as there will be a large disparity in size!! I don't think the piece is making any comment about the quality of the resulting birds or their performance.... just that you can easily sex them.

I hope that makes sense.

Regards

Barbara

 

[Kenny_]

Bresse to me is a dual purpose bird all by itself, so a Bresse hybrid should be an excellent layer. They already lay pretty well prior to being mated with a leghorn, right?

You make total sense in your reply! I was hoping someone here had crossed them and could reply about the quality of their performance afterwards, but it seems no one here has done that, possibly.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, Barbara.