Did you know it is possible to breed chickens in a way that females will hatch in one down color and males will hatch a completely different down color, making it easy to tell them apart? Hatcheries do it all the time and buyers LOVE knowing they are getting guaranteed pullets! Here I’ll share the most reliable recipes used to breed sex-link chicken chicks:
How to Breed Sex-Link Chicken Chicks
Sex-link chicks are bred by using parents who have known genes (usually specific feather color genes) to produce offspring with down coloring that is linked to their sex. Males will be one color and females another color. The male and female chick down colors can be completely different or very subtle and more difficult to differentiate, requiring a trained eye.
The Genetics You Need to Know to Breed Sex-Link Chicks:
An understanding of some basic chicken genetics will help with your breeding. I promise to make it as easy as possible!
Chicken Chromosome Genes: Z & W
Chickens have different genes than humans. While humans have X and Y chromosomes, chickens have Z and W. Cockerels/roosters/males are ZZ while pullets/hens/females are ZW. It is important to know that hens/females can only have one Z chromosome and it always comes from her father while her one W gene always comes from her mother. This is why sex-linking can occur.
Understanding Head Spots
When breeding sex-link chicks, some recipes produce males who hatch with “head spots”. This is a term used to describe a patch of different colored down on the top or back of a chick’s head. Head spots are typically light yellow-white or yellow colored and are visible on black, blue, chipmunk brown, reddish or gold colored chicks. (It is possible for head spots to be on light yellow chicks but they may be very hard to see.)
Are Sex-Link Chicks 100% Guaranteed?
It is generally believed that red sex-link chicks are 99% accurate. It is possible that some individuals can hatch looking a little lighter or darker than expected and therefore be confused with the opposite sex’s coloring. Black sex-link chicks have a near 100% accuracy, thanks to the head spot, but a tiny percent of males can have very faint head spots that show up as “light black” instead of yellow. I suggest that breeders only sell the most obvious sex-link pullets and any chicks you are uncertain about can be grown out and then sold as started pullets later if they turn out to be female.
The Most Popular Sex-Link Breeding Combinations
There are a few combinations that produce the most common sex-linked chicks. We will go over each in detail below with some helpful visuals:
Non-Barred Rooster Mated to Barred Hens
This is one of the most popular combinations used by small scale breeders. The rule is simple to follow: a non-barred, solid colored rooster (black, blue, red, etc but cannot be Dominant White) is mated to barred feathered hens, like a Barred Rock or Crested Cream Legbar. This always produces sex-link chicks. Why? Because the gene for barred feathers is only on the Z chromosome. Since pullets will get only one Z chromosome and it will ONLY come from the non-barred rooster, they will all hatch solid colored and feather out solid colored with no barring. The male offspring will inherit a Z chromosome from each parent. The Z chromosome from his barred mother will carry the barred gene and it only takes 1 copy of that gene to express as barred feathers. The males will ALL hatch with head spots and will feather out lightly barred (heterozygous barred). This pairing creates black sex-link chicks.
Black Sex-Link Recipe
The Black sex-link (described above) is a popular breeding recipe used by hatcheries. It follows the rule of mating a non-barred rooster to a barred hen. For example, hatcheries often mate a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red rooster to Barred Rock hens. The offspring all hatch with black down, hence the black sex-link name, but males will be barred and have a head spot. Females will have a solid black head. As the chicks feather out, the males will be barred black and white with some red leakage in their feathers. Females will feather out solid black, generally with some red feathers around the throat and/or neck region.
Red Sex-Link Recipes
Red sex-links are bred using a number of different recipes. They are called “red” because one of the breeds used is generally red feathered or the female offspring produced is usually reddish or red feathered. Here are some examples:
Golden Comet Recipe
Golden Comets are the name given to a hybrid with a specific recipe. A New Hampshire Red rooster is bred to White Plymouth Rock hens. At hatch, the female chicks have golden brown faces with gold-brown chipmunk stripes on a buff yellow background color. The males are a vibrant solid white-yellow color with no markings. Females will feather out in shades of red with whitish feathers visible in the tail. (Young pullets feather out white-kissed-with-red that increases to almost all red body feathering.) Males feather out nearly solid white with cream hackles, perhaps with some light reddish leakage and generally have a dark rusty red patch on the shoulder. Some hatcheries use a recipe slightly different than the historic recipe mentioned here.
Cinnamon Queen Recipe
Cinnamon Queens are a red sex-link hybrid that used to be just one recipe but now hatcheries use the name for various red sex-links. The original recipe is a New Hampshire Red rooster bred to Silver Laced Wyandotte hens. At hatch, the female chicks have reddish-gold faces with brown chipmunk stripes on a golden body. The males are much lighter yellow with lighter brown chipmunk stripes that seem to have a fainter overall patterning. Females will feather out in red shades kissed with black flecks at the neck and tail. Males feather out predominantly white with cream neck and saddle feathers and rusty red shoulders. (“Cinnamon Queen” hens who are red and white are not made using the above cross but are still a red sex-link.) Cackle Hatchery discloses that they use Rhode Island Red x Rhode Island White for their cross, which is the correct recipe for a Golden Sex Link, but not the historic Cinnamon Queen recipe. Other hatcheries use a Rhode Island Red rooster instead of a New Hampshire red for their Cinnamon Queens.
Here’s a Historical Red Sex-Link Recipe List:
Red Feathered Rooster x Delaware Hens produces Red Sex-Links.
New Hampshire Red roo x Silver Laced Wyandotte hens produces the Cinnamon Queen.
New Hampshire roo x White Plymouth Rock hens produces the Golden Comet.
Rhode Island Red roo x Rhode Island White* hens produces the Golden Sex-Link.
*Rhode Island White hens are Recessive White. Today, only 19% of Rhode Island White hens are believed to carry the Silver Dilute (S) gene needed to create sex-link offspring. I do not recommend using this breed. Hatcheries are using special breeding flocks where they have guaranteed their Rhode Island White hens carry Silver Dilute (S). If you must use this breed, Cackle Hatchery uses RIW for many of their sex-link crosses and we assume their line will give you the greatest chance of getting purebred hens carrying Silver Dilute.
Other Red Sex Links
You may be noticing that a red feathered rooster bred to certain white, Columbian, or silver-laced hens will produce a red sex link. Cackle Hatchery provides a nice image of their Rhode Island Red roo x Delaware Hen red sex-link chicks so you can see how easy this cross is to sex at hatch.
Is It Okay to Add Sex-Link Hens to My Breeding Project?
Generally, yes! Sex-links are typically bred to be laying hens. If you have purchased Olive Egger or Easter Egger sex-links, these are hybrid birds which are fine to use in your hybrid breeding projects so long as you like the color egg she lays!
What is Autosexing and What is Sex-Link?
If you have purchased “sex-link” purebreds these are called autosexing and you can use them to create more purebreds or use them to breed hybrids. Autosexing means sex link traits have been breed through multiple generations until they are a permanent part of the purebred line. Purebreds can be autosexing while sex-links are always hybrid crosses.
If I Breed Sex-Link Roos & Hens Together, Do I Get More Sex-Link Chicks?
No. To create one generation of sex-link chicks, you must breed a specific color rooster to specific color hens. The sex-link only works for the first generation (F1) of chicks. If you breed the chicks together, you may have chicks hatch in two different colors but the chicks of one color will be half male and half female, and the chicks of the other color will also be half male and half female. Feather Color Sex-link breeding only works for the first generation cross.
Will Sex-Link Females Only Produce Girls?
No. Sex-link females will grow up and be able to produce both male and female offspring like any normal hen. Sex-link refers to being able to tell males from females at hatch because they are different colors.
Can I Breed Sex-Link Colored Egg Layers?
YES YOU CAN! If you’d like to see highly detailed infographics and in-depth guidance on what specific feather colors to cross to help you create blue, green, olive, and dark chocolate egg laying sex-links, check out my 26 page eBook on Breeding Sex-Link Colored Egg Layers in my shop! It’s packed with breeding recipes that work, warnings about which breeds (and crosses) are likely to fail plus specific chicken genotypes and phenotypes to avoid, with dozens of pictures and images to help walk you through every step:
What Happens to the Unwanted Males?
Breeders who are able to offer guaranteed pullets can charge more per chick. But she will be stuck with a huge number of unwanted cockerels. These boys often go to a “Rooster Ranch” where they pasture range and grow until a harvestable age, between 13 to 20 weeks old. If this is upsetting to you, I suggest NOT breeding sex-link chicks. Tending to the males you produce is a significant responsibility.
Can I Use Barred Roosters Instead of Barred Hens?
NO! Barred roosters are not able to produce sex-link chicks. If a sex-link breeding recipe calls for barred hens to be used, you cannot flip the recipe and use a barred rooster instead. Many sex-link recipes work only if the hens are barred. (This means Crested Cream Legbar roosters will not be used, nor any of the barred roosters your hybrid breeding projects produce, if you want to breed for sex-link colored egg layer chicks.)
Do Sex-Link Crosses Always Work?
They work if you get the recipe right! If you want detailed help, check out the Sex-Link Breeding Guide where multiple breeding recipes are clearly explained with visuals. I even cover why you can use certain feather colors of purebred true Ameraucanas and Marans hens (but not other feather colors) to get the sex-link colored egg layers you desire.
Let Chick Buyers Know: Purchasing Sex-Link Pullets Saves Money!
One standard size chicken will eat a full 40 pound bag of commercial feed by the time it reaches 22 weeks of age. If a bag of feed is $35, you have saved this expense for each male you do not end up with. Now add in litter, odor control, scratch grains, treats, electricity to run the warming plate, vitamins, and other miscellaneous expenses incurred while raising chicks to adulthood. You have saved all of this additional expense for each unwanted male you avoided. The one-time payment of a higher pullet chick price is so very worth it! Even if the sex-link pullet chicks were $30 each, this is still cheaper than a $35 bag of feed that would be expended to raise each unwanted male. Buying sex-link females saves money in the long run!
Breed Your Own Sex-Link Chicks!
I hope this article has given you a helpful introduction to breeding the visually sexable at hatch chicks you’re wanting to add to your flock!
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