Which Chicks Should I Keep?

[MGG]

I agree, if you're only keeping one I'd look for a pea comb and rule out the one with a single comb. I think it's most likely that the first three are your olive eggers, and all probably have roughly equal chances of laying green/olive. There is a chance, however unlikely, that the first one with no muffs and clean legs could be a clean faced easter egger (then again she could suddenly sprout muffs in a few weeks like one of the bym chicks from my last hatch). The feathered legs on the third chick rule out confusing with an easter egger.

Ok, thanks! I'll keep the blue one. Do you know anything about any of the birds I listed farther up? What crosses would make autosexing chicks? Any potential for autosexing chicks big enough to be meatbirds?

And I got two of most breeds, so I'll keep one and give her one. Is keeping the biggest chick generally best? I'm interested in birds that look like they should. I know they're hatchery birds and all. For the new Hampshire Reds, is darker or lighter better? Or should I just go with the biggest? Same with the buff Orpingtons, Barnevelders, black australorp, dark Brahmas, Rhode Island Reds, etc. I can take pictures of all of them again too. I'm just supposed to give them to her tonight. She just wants pets that lay eggs. I want that too, but I want them to look good and potentially breed them in the future. Not for showing or anything, but maybe breed for size and color.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Sorry I didn't have a chance to reply sooner. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the genetics involved with autosexing (which unlike sex linkage would hold true for F2's and beyond).
But either the leghorn or new hampshire rooster over the barred rock or bielefelder hens (or any other barred or cuckoo hen) will give you black sex links. If you're looking for meat bird crosses you should try to keep track of which chicks put on weight the fastest. Even just weighing at like 8 or 12 and 16 weeks would give you an idea of who's most likely to produce faster growing chicks.

 

[MGG]

Sorry I didn't have a chance to reply sooner. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the genetics involved with autosexing (which unlike sex linkage would hold true for F2's and beyond).
But either the leghorn or new hampshire rooster over the barred rock or bielefelder hens (or any other barred or cuckoo hen) will give you black sex links. If you're looking for meat bird crosses you should try to keep track of which chicks put on weight the fastest. Even just weighing at like 8 or 12 and 16 weeks would give you an idea of who's most likely to produce faster growing chicks.

No worries! I guess maybe I got my terms mixed up, I mean sex linked I think.
I can do that. So don't start weighing until 8 weeks?

 

[MGG]

So I bought two roosters, a brown leghorn and a new Hampshire red. They threw in an extra I'm pretty sure, a barred rock. I already have a barred olive egger rooster, he's an Ameraucana penedesenca cross.

The hens I have now are :
Buff brahma
Multiple EEs
A splash Silkie
Rhode Island Red
A couple mixes
A splash blue Laced red Wyandotte
Barred Rock

I got the following pullet chicks :
Barred Rock
Columbian Rock cross
Black Copper Marans
Splash Laced Red Wyandotte
Buff Orpington
Dark Brahma
Golden Laced Wyandotte
New Hampshire Red
2 Rhode Island Reds
Brown Leghorn
Black Australorp
Olive Egger
Bielefelder
Barnevelder

What kind of mixes could I make in the future to sustain my flock? I know I can do a few purebreds. Can I make anything cool or autosexing? I was planning on getting rid of the olive egger rooster, I just don't need 4 boys. Unless any really cool crosses could be made with it. I'm very excited about the Bielefelder, can I cross that with the new Hampshire and make auto sexing chicks? I'm sure they'd be big pretty layers. I don't know the genetics though. I also think meatbirds would be cool in the future, but if they could be auto sexing where I could separate the boys right away and not get attached that would be preferred.

@NatJ , any thoughts? I know you're good with genetics. What would some of these crosses look like? Any cool traits I could get?

 

[NatJ]

either the leghorn or new hampshire rooster over the barred rock or bielefelder hens (or any other barred or cuckoo hen) will give you black sex links.

Almost but not quite.

Brown Leghorn or New Hampshire over Barred Rock will give black sexlinks (sons black with white barring and they hatch with a yellow or white spot on top of their head, daughters black with no barring and no headspot).)

With a Bielefelder hen, either rooster will give brown chicks, probably with chipmunk stripes or something similar. Sons will have white barring and daughters will not, so they could be considered sexlinks, but the difference may not be obvious while the chicks are young. It is much more obvious on black.

So I bought two roosters, a brown leghorn and a new Hampshire red. They threw in an extra I'm pretty sure, a barred rock. I already have a barred olive egger rooster, he's an Ameraucana penedesenca cross.

The hens I have now are :
Buff brahma
Multiple EEs
A splash Silkie
Rhode Island Red
A couple mixes
A splash blue Laced red Wyandotte
Barred Rock

I got the following pullet chicks :
Barred Rock
Columbian Rock cross
Black Copper Marans
Splash Laced Red Wyandotte
Buff Orpington
Dark Brahma
Golden Laced Wyandotte
New Hampshire Red
2 Rhode Island Reds
Brown Leghorn
Black Australorp
Olive Egger
Bielefelder
Barnevelder

What kind of mixes could I make in the future to sustain my flock? I know I can do a few purebreds. Can I make anything cool or autosexing? I was planning on getting rid of the olive egger rooster, I just don't need 4 boys. Unless any really cool crosses could be made with it. I'm very excited about the Bielefelder, can I cross that with the new Hampshire and make auto sexing chicks? I'm sure they'd be big pretty layers. I don't know the genetics though. I also think meatbirds would be cool in the future, but if they could be auto sexing where I could separate the boys right away and not get attached that would be preferred.

If the Olive Egger pullet is black with white barring, she can also produce sexlinks with the Brown Leghorn or the New Hampshire rooster. At least some chicks will be black sexlinks. There is a chance of some chicks being brown, like the ones from Bielefelder with those roosters (sexing is harder or may be impossible when they are young, depending on how the colors show up.)

Barred Olive Egger rooster might be able to produce autosexing chicks with Barred Rock or Bielefelder hens, or with Olive Egger if she's barred. I say "might" because it only works properly if he has two barring genes, and some Olive Eggers only have one barring gene. The autosexing chicks would be colored like Barred Rocks or like Bielefelders (black base color vs. brown/striped base color), depending on which sets of genes they inherit. Autosexing works because males are able to have two barring genes, which causes them to have lighter coloring (more white), while females are only able to have one barring gene (so they have darker coloring.) This is caused by the barring gene being on the Z sex chromosome. Male birds have ZZ, females have ZW.

Barred Rock rooster should produce autosexing chicks with any hen that has the barring gene (Barred Rock, Bielefelder, any Olive Eggers that have barring.) Chicks from him should all have a black base color, so they would be sexed the same way as pure Barred Rocks (males with a bigger headspot and lighter-colored feet & shanks, females with a smaller headspot and darker colored feet & shanks.)

If the Columbian Rock Cross is silver (white) with bits of black at the neck and tail, she could produce gold/silver sexlinks with either the Brown Leghorn or the New Hampshire rooster. Sons will be silver, daughters gold. Dark Brahma is technically Silver too, and should be able to produce gold/silver sexlink chicks. The problem is the whether you can see the gold vs. silver differences in the chick down. It might work better to use the New Hampshire rooster with her if you want to try it, because he's got less black in his own coloring, so the chicks might show more of the gold/silver and less black as compared with chicks from the same mother but a Brown Leghorn father.

If any of your EEs and mixes have silver-and-black coloring, they could also produce gold/silver sexlinks with the Brown Leghorn or New Hampshire rooster. But any chicks with very dark down will be hard to sex even when the gold/silver genes are correct.


You cannot get sexlinks or autosexing chicks from any of your other hens, because they are gold (cannot produce gold/silver sexlinks) and do not have the barring gene (cannot produce barred/not-barred sexlinks, cannot produce autosexing chicks.)

Other traits:
--hens with feathered feet, crested heads, extra toes, muff/beard will tend to produce chicks with those traits. Not always, but often.

--single comb is recessive. If you cross two parents with single combs, all chicks will have single combs. If one parent has another type of comb, chicks are likely to also have that other type of comb.

--the pea comb gene is linked to the blue egg gene. But the linkage can go any direction:
blue egg/pea comb in Ameraucanas and some Easter Eggers, Olive Eggers
not-blue egg/pea comb in Brahmas
blue egg/not-pea comb in Cream Legbars
not-blue egg/not-pea comb in most other breeds

So if you cross a Brahma with a Leghorn, chicks with pea combs will lay brown or cream eggs, not blue. But if you cross a pea-comb Easter Egger or Olive Egger with a Leghorn, chicks with pea combs will most likely lay blue or green eggs. Unless the Easter Egger or Olive Egger manages to have two pea comb genes, with one linked to blue egg and the other linked to not-blue egg. A chicken like that will give pea comb to all chicks, but only half will lay blue eggs. (I once had an Easter Egger like that.)

The part about the color ranging from sage to olive makes sense because it's based off of how dark the Marans or Welsummer eggs are. The potential to lay other colors makes zero sense.

It makes perfect sense if the "Ameraucanas" are not actually pure for the blue egg gene.

Given the description, I would expect that whatever birds the hatchery is calling "Ameraucana" in the cross, they know that a few of them have the gene for not-blue eggs, but they don't care enough to test all the birds and remove those ones. So they put in that bit about "other colors" because putting it in the description is quick and easy.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Ah, of course. My brain tends to use "black sex link" as shorthand for "barred sexlink" and it was past my bedtime when I posted Thanks for the clarification!)

 

[GirlsHuntToo]

I would keep either #2 or #3 because they have the normal features for Olive Eggers. There is a likely chance all three of them will lay olive eggs. (I've never had an Olive Egger not lay olive eggs) So really I would just pick what chick you like the best.

As for the questionable EE, to me it looks like it has a straight comb. It could be a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte with a straight comb. It can happen. (I had a SLW roo, and have a GLW hen with straight combs)

 

[NatJ]

As for the questionable EE, to me it looks like it has a straight comb. It could be a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte with a straight comb. It can happen. (I had a SLW roo, and have a GLW hen with straight combs)

Which one would that be?
I see they are numbered.
#4 appears to have a single (straight) comb, but it also appears to have dark feet (willow?) The facial markings remind me of laced Wyandottes of some kind, but I'm pretty sure the feet are wrong for Wyandottes.

#6 (mentioned as maybe a Splash Laced Red Wyandotte but thought to have a pea comb): I agree that comb looks like pea, not rose (would be correct for a Wyandotte) or single (sometimes happens in Wyandottes.) Also, the feet look dark to me (willow?) which is common in Easter Eggers but definitely wrong for Wyandottes.

So I would guess that both of those are actually Easter Eggers. It will be interesting to see how they look as they get older, and how many guesses turn out to be right or wrong.