Sex-links are
crossbred
A crossbreed is an organism with purebred parents of two different breeds, varieties, or populations. ''Crossbreeding'', sometimes called "designer crossbreeding", is the process of breeding such an organism, While crossbreeding is used to main ...
chickens whose color at hatching is differentiated by sex, thus making
chick sexing
Chick sexing is the method of distinguishing the sex of chickens and other hatchlings, usually by a trained person called a chick sexer or chicken sexer. Chicken sexing is practiced mostly by large commercial hatcheries to separate female chicks ...
an easier process. Sex-links come in several varieties. As hybrids of laying or dual-purpose breeds infused with extra vigor via
heterosis, sex-links can be extremely good egg-layers which often produce 300 eggs a year or more depending on the quality of care and feed. The color of their eggs vary according to the mix of breeds, and blue-green eggs are possible.
Chicks of a single breed that are similarly sex-linked are called autosex chickens, a term developed to differentiate between
sex linkage in purebred chickens versus sex linkage in crossbreeds.
Sex-link types
Many common varieties are known as the black sex-link (also called black stars) and the red sex-link (also called red stars). More specific variety names are common as well.
* Black sex-link like "Black rocks" are a cross between unique specially bred hybrid strains of
Rhode Island Red
The Rhode Island Red is an American breed of domestic chicken. It is the state bird of Rhode Island. It was developed there and in Massachusetts in the late nineteenth century, by cross-breeding birds of Oriental origin such as the Malay with ...
rooster (but any non-white and non barred rooster may be used for other black sex-link crosses) and a
Barred Rock
The Plymouth Rock is an American breed of domestic chicken. It was first seen in Massachusetts in the nineteenth century, and for much of the early twentieth century was the most widely kept chicken breed in the United States. It is a dual-pur ...
hen (which carry both extended black and barring genes).
* Red sex-links are a cross between a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster and a
White Rock (This variety pair is known as a
Golden Comet),
Silver Laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island White, or
Delaware hen.
Examples of a red-linked breeds include the
Red Shaver
The Red Shaver is a sex linked breed of chicken developed in Canada. Pullets are reddish-brown in colour with white underfeathers, while males are white with a few red markings on the feathers. They are a hardy, dual-purpose breed laying brown eg ...
and
ISA Brown
The ISA Brown is a crossbreed of chicken, with sex-linked coloration. It is thought to have been the result of a complex series of crosses including but not limited to Rhode Island Reds and Rhode Island Whites, and contains genes from a wide ...
sex-links which are found in Canada.
White birds should not be used in sex-linked crosses because white colour allele is sometimes dominant and sometimes recessive.
Sex-linked Information
/ref>
Gallery
File:A_Red_Sex_Link_Rooster_"Freckles".jpg, A red sex-link rooster
File:Black Rock Hen 'Blackie'.jpg, A Black Rock hen
File:RedStarhen.jpg, A red sex-link pullet
File:Beautiful Roo by sejr.jpg, A black sex-link rooster
File:Shipped pullets.jpg, Shipped pullets
File:Linda Lee, a pet Red Sex Link hen (2004).jpg, Red sex-link hen
File:Black Sex Link Chicken.JPG, Black sex-link rooster
See also
* ZW sex-determination system
* List of chicken breeds
References
External links
{{chicken
Chicken crossbreeds