Most chicken keepers are keen to know the sex of their chicks at hatch. It often means they are easier to sell or that we can re-home unwanted cockerels far sooner then waiting until they are several months old. Very few methods of determining sex in chicks are as reliable as having auto-sexing breeds or producing sex-linked crosses.
Auto-sexing chickens are purebreds, whose male and female chicks look different at hatch. Sex-links, on the other hand, are hybrids created from breeding two different purebreds. I’ve talked about the genetics of auto-sexing in a previous post and will focus on sex-links in this one.
Sex-Linked Genetics
A sex-linked gene is carried on the sex chromosome instead of the regular chromosomes (humans have 46 chromosomes, while chickens have 78). In mammals, females have a matching pair of sex chromosomes (XX) while males carry two different ones (XY). In chickens the situation is reversed: males have a matched pair of ZZ chromosomes and females have a ZW set.
This is relevant because the Z chromosome is longer and contains more information than the W chromosome. Hens have only one copy of many genes because they exist only on the Z chromosome. This means that a sex-linked characteristic is much more common, or occurs only in, one sex.
Sex chromosomes carry genes that affect gender as well as other traits, such as plumage colour. Understanding how those characteristics are inherited is the basis of sex-linked crosses and can be used to determine the gender of the offspring. Sex-linked crosses can only be produced with male and female chickens of different breeds in specific combinations.
Here are some examples:
Delaware hens mated to a New Hampshire or Rhode Island Red roosters results in cockerel offspring that will grow up to have the Delaware feather pattern of their mother and their pullets will have the solid red feather pattern of their father. If you reverse that cross by mating a Delaware rooster with a New Hampshire or Rhode Island Red hen, all their offspring will have the same Delaware feather pattern.
Roosters with a genetically ‘gold’ plumage crossed with hens that had a genetically ‘silver’ plumage produce male and female chicks of different colours. In order to get sex-linked chicks you have to mate a gold plumage rooster to a silver plumage hen. The pullets will take after their father and be the same ‘gold’ colour and the cockerels look like their ‘silver’ mother.
The most common silver plumage breeds include: Light Sussex, Silver or White Wyandotte and White Orpington. Gold plumage breeds used for a sex-linked cross are: Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, Barnevelder, Buff Rock and Brown Leghorn.
Gold & Silver Sex-Linked Chicks (Backyard Chickens)
Hatcheries often have their own names for the same two crosses used to create easily identifiable hens: black sex-links and red sex-links.
Black sex-links are created by crossing a barred hen with a non-barred rooster. A common cross is a Barred Plymouth Rock hen mated with a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster.
The barring gene is a sex-linked characteristic that’s attached to the Z sex chromosome. If a black rooster is bred to a barred hen all of their sons will have one copy of barring from their mother and one copy of black from their father.
Pullets don’t receive a barring gene (which is only located on the male chromosome.) The cockerels inherit one barring gene from the hen (from her male chromosome). At hatch, both sexes have black down, but the males can be identified by the white dot on their head. Cockerels resemble their mother, but as they get older their barring will be less defined than it would be if they had two copies of the barring gene.
Pullets will be a solid colour, usually black, with some red in their neck feathers.
Purebred male Barred Rocks, with two copies of barring, have much finer bars of coloring than the purebred females do, with only one copy.
Red sex-links can be produced from a number of different crosses. White Plymouth Rock hens (silver) are crossed with New Hampshire roosters to produce the Gold Comet. The silver gene is on the sex-chromosome and inhibits red pigmentation in feathers. When these chicks hatch, the males will be white, the females will have a red cast. Roosters will end up mostly white, with some red spots showing through, while hens will be mostly red with some white spots especially in the tails and lower wings.
Cinnamon Queens are the result of a Silver Laced Wyandotte hen crossed with a New Hampshire rooster. Male chicks will come out white, while hens are more red or brown in color.
ISA Browns are a form of red sex links that started from breeding Rhode Island Reds from Rhode Island Whites. Several other breeds have been added in over the years.
Sex-linked hens are considered desirable, not only because they can be sexed at hatch, but also they are also good layers. Purebred gene pools can sometimes be quite small, but by creating crosses we can take advantage of hybrid vigour. By expanding genetic variation we are increasing genetic strength. Each breed has its own disease resistance, strengths and weaknesses, so crossing with a different breed is seen as giving their offspring the best of both worlds.
It’s important to remember that the offspring of a sex-linked cross can’t be used to produce a second sex-linked cross. Sex-linked birds are crosses and not purebreds so you must continue to use the original cross to obtain the same results. The ability to determine their chick’s sex at hatch is limited to the first generation.
Credits: Backyard Chickens; Dr Jacquie Jacob (Poultry Extension); Poultry Keeper & Scratch Cradle. Photo Credits: Chick Hatchery; Diem Farm; Poultry Keeper; Tractor Supply Company.
Bitchin' Chickens 
If I breed a white orpington rooster with a buff orpington hen ,will the chicks be sexlink?
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No. Sex-linked chicks are produced by crossing two birds of different breeds with specific characteristics. If you cross two Orpingtons of different colours you’ll end up with Orpingtons and not a cross. White is a colour that often hides recessive genetics, so a white parent can produce non-white offspring.
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I was wondering about this too. Surely a buff orpington rooster (with sex linked gold) mated with a white orpington hen (silver) would produce buff girls and white boys. Are you able to explain why not?
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I asked your question in a chicken genetics group. You would have to know if the parents were homozygous (i.e. carrying two genes for the same traits) or not. There are two whites in Orpingtons – recessive (heterozygous – one gene for white) or dominant (homozygous – two genes for white). If recessive, then white hides other potential colours. I’m assuming if one parent was sex linked gold and the other silver, then yes, they would produce sex linked chicks. If not, then no. I think that’s a simple answer to a more complex question, so I invite someone with more knowledge to comment if they can shed light on that pairing.
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If I breed a BBS Orpington rooster with a pure Crested Cream Legbar hen, will I get black sex-linked babies? This is fascinating!
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The hen will only pass on the barring gene to her sons, so all barred chicks will be male. I don’t know enough about BBS colour genetics to predict what colour the chicks will be.
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Hello!
I loved this article! Thank you for writing it. It’s left me with a few questions though.
I have Delaware and Speckled Sussex. SS rooster in with SS and Delaware hens. I just hatched out a batch of 21 and they all look different. Starting out some were yellow, some were yellow chipmunk stripped with dots on the back of their head and more of a red hue on the yellow. Some were chipmunk stripped and some were yellow undertones with chipmunk stripes.
I’m very curious to see how they turn out sex wise to know if I have sex linked individuals. I know I have a lot of roosters already 😆
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When you have enough hatching experience under your belt you’ll see repeated patterns and begin to recognize early chick plumage and predict what they will end up looking like. If you want to delve deeper I would recommend joining an online chicken genetics group like this one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/432783794009393. The owner of the group, Sigrid van Dort, is quite knowledgeable and has written several texts on chicken genetics. Have fun figuring out what you’ve got.
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Ok so I just found this post (I’ve followed you on fb for a while now 🤣) and I’m trying to wrap my head around this. I’d really like to sell rhodebar chicks. Auto sex. So I was told if I had a barred rock rooster and a RIR hen I would get this. I’ve read this article over three times now and for some reason my head just can’t absorb all this info right now. Would this work though?
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My understanding is if you breed a barred hen to a non-barred rooster she passes the barring gene only on to her sons. If you reverse that pairing then the barred rooster can pass it on to both male and female offspring. You want to be able to distinguish the chicks at birth based on who is barred or not. Does that make sense? I have bred a purebred Cream Legbar to a non-barred rooster and only her sons carried the barring gene and were able to be sexed at hatch.
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Thank you! Yes it does make sense. I knew you’d be the right person to ask. You’re so informative and knowledgeable.
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If I breed a lavender Orpington rooster to a golden comet hen, what would that be?
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Golden Comets are a hybrid and a mix of several breeds. You’d have to know what genetics that hen was carrying before you could predict what her offspring will look like and what genetics they carry. Sex-linked chicks are produced by crossing specific breeds that carry certain colours (i.e. silver, gold or barring).
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How could I find that out? I’ve hatched some from the two and I’ve came out with chicks that are black and chicks that are yellow
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You can join this FB chicken genetics group for advice https://www.facebook.com/groups/432783794009393, Often with crosses it’s trial and error to figure out what genetics your birds carry. For instance, my rooster looks solid white with a bit of gold in his tail feathers, but he regularly produces barred chicks.
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