# Sex link Question



## blulady (8 mo ago)

Ok I have some sex linked babies. From what I understand the first hatch you are suppose be able to sex them by their marking. And only on first hatch, but my question is how do they know its the first hatch?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

OK, this is a question for @fuzzies. She can explain sex links like nobody's business.

But I think you might be confusing first hatch. They mean the next generation will hatch sex links. For the rest we do need Pip to step in. Or I'll confuse us both.


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## fuzzies (Jul 27, 2021)

Yes, it's the first _generation_, not just the first chick to hatch or the first batch of eggs that are hatched, that's sexlinked when you make a sexlinked cross. You cannot then take the chicks from that first generation and breed them together to make more sexlinks as the genes they've inherited are all wrong for that.

How sexlinked genes work is the mother can _only _pass them on to her sons, whereas the father can pass them to either sons or daughters. So as an example, with the sexlinked barring gene, if you breed a barred female with a non-barred male, the mother passes the barring gene only to her sons because it is sexlinked. Since the father is not barred and the mother cannot pass barring to her daughters, all of their daughters are _not _barred. So what you get from this cross is male chicks with barring (which can be seen in chick down as a white spot on the head) and female chicks without barring (lacking the white spot). No matter how many eggs are hatched from this pairing, they will always be sexlinked because the parents' genes do not change.

If you then take those barred sons and not-barred daughters from that cross and breed them together, what you'll produce is equal numbers of barred and not-barred offspring, but this is not selective of sex. It's the male in this generation that has the barring gene, and he can pass that gene to either his sons or his daughters without any preference toward either sex. What you end up with looks like it could be sexlinks because about half have the white spot and half don't, similarly to the previous generation, but in truth they are just a mix of barred and not-barred chicks of both sexes. This is what is meant when they say only the first generation in a sexlinked cross is sexlinked.

What exactly the male and female chicks of your sexlinked hatch will look like depends on which of the sexlinked genes were used to produce them. But, they should _all _be sexlinked if their parents had the correct genes for a sexlinked cross.


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## blulady (8 mo ago)

Ok that will do. Still confusing but not worried about it as most likely wont get a sex linked chick anyway as the roo is not sex linked that I know of


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## fuzzies (Jul 27, 2021)

Oh, the father doesn't have to _be _sexlinked, he just has to have the right genes to combine with a hen's genes to make sexlinks.

So, using barring again as the example, a Black Australorp male could be bred to any barred hen and make sexlinked chicks, despite that Black Australorps are not, themselves, sexlinked.

Do you know what breeds and varieties the parents are, or have any pictures of them? I can probably tell you whether you'd get sexlinked chicks from them.


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## blulady (8 mo ago)

Their suppose be Cinnamon Queens. Will try to get updated pics tomorrow


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