#autosexing

[homeofhousechickens]

Not sure if you've talked about this before, but how does barring work? Like in Plymouth rocks and dominiques. I've heard the chicks are autosexing but haven't been able to find specifics. Thank you!

I made these just for you and anyone else who has trouble remembering how barring works

Graphic design is my passion/s i made these in mspaint

I didnt show the difference in how dark or light barring is besides the one pic it is relevant just to make it easy for me. If i misspelled anything its because im sleepy and fluffernutter was wrestling me the whole time i was making these lol

Click on the images for best quality

[birdgenetics]

Sex-Linked Barring, Part 2: Autosexing

Since they don't have chicks at shows, I will have to glean my photos off the internet.

Anyway, as you may know, barred chicks can be sexed at hatch, though it is not always 100 percent reliable.

Additionally, duckwing chicks can be sexed at hatch since they are sexually dimorphic. The female chicks will have sharper dorsal stripes while male chicks will have more diffuse stripes and will usually be more greyish overall.

Leghorn (gold duckwing) chicks courtesy of Don Schrider:

The male is on the left.

I have found that some other colors to have sexually dimorphic chick down as well, such as certain lines of Rhode Island Reds and Buckeyes. Ironic, because black tailed red has a low level of dimorphism in adult birds.

Crele is simply barring on a gold duckwing base.

While crele is an autosexing color, it takes selective breeding to create super distinctive male and female chicks.

Cream Legbars are crele with the cream gene. Regular gold crele Legbar's also exist.

I like this picture of cream Legbar chicks from Wabi Sabi acres because it exhibts how light the male chicks are and how large and obvious the head spot. The female is much darker. Some Legbar females have a faint head spot but this one is almost invisible.

Bielefelders are red crele.

This picture from Happy Wife Acres:

Even though they are not selected for it, you can still see a difference in these red Crele Old English chicks from Valley Hatchery:

There are some varieties that are called "crele" but are not barred gold duckwing. For example, "crele" Orpingtons are actually barred partridge. Since partridge chick down is not sexually dimorphic, I don't think these are, either.

Barred black tailed red can be autosexing, though, as exhibited in the Rhodebar breed:

BYC user dheltzel used this photo of Rhodebar chicks in the BYC Rhodebar article.

55 Flowery Hens are sort of unique in that the combination of crele and mottling makes for males that are almost white as adults.

There are many other autosexing breeds that were created but many are now either rare or extinct.