So have you ever wondered which hybrid chicken to choose, or even if you should use them? Or maybe you are wondering if you would want to try a hybrid chicken...
I will start off by giving you some of the hybrid egg layers commonly found:
(Male X Female)
Black Star/Black Sex Link
Rhode Island Red (RIR) X Barred Plymouth Rock or New Hampshire X Barred Rock
Red Star/Red Sex Link
RIR X White Leghorn
Cherry Eggers
RIR X New Hampshire Red
Cinnamon Queen
New Hampshire X Silver Laced Whyandotte
Golden Comet
New Hampshire X White Rock
Red Sex Link
RIR X Rhode Island White or Production Red X Delaware
Ambers
RIR X White Rock
Hybrids used for meat use:
Cornish Cross
White Rock X Cornish
Silver Barred Hybrid
Barred Rock X White Rock
So which ones are best?
Much of it is really up to you and what you want. As you probably noticed most of the high production egg layer hybrids are bred to be sex link (the sex of the chick can be determined at birth based on the color). This gives you 100% accuracy sexing without having to do that very invasive sexing done at hatcheries. I have looked up how to do it, but I think I will leave it to the pros, plus there are many physical characteristics that quickly appear, allowing for determination of sex.
I personally like to buy for the most part my purebred chickens and breed all my hybrid chickens, that keeps my breeding stock fresh. For my own breeding of purebreds I will also mix different strains of the breed to make them healthier and more productive.
So when you look at the hybrid layers, you will probably notice there are two main groups, red sex link and black sex link, the red sex link is easier to clean if you butcher you own birds once they are finished with their laying career, but the black sex links tend to have a longer laying career. I personally have bred more black sex links because I like them better.
Black Sex Link
The roosters will look like a barred rock, with a slight tint of red when full grown and black with a white dot on their heads when babies. The females will look all black as chicks and black with a red/brown breast when full grown. These guys tend to lay larger eggs for an extended period of time.
Red Sex Link
The males look white as chicks and when full grown look white with some odd colored feathers mixed in. The females hatch out buff/red and their adult feathers either look buff or red or some color in between, it really depends on the cross you used because as you can see there are quite a few to choose from, since all you have to do is cross a reddish and a white chicken.
Why does the crossing work?
Many chickens are inbred. If you are familiar with inbred animals, you will notice that they are weak and less productive. This same concept is true for chickens, when you cross the breeds, it introduces new genetics and if they line up just right (called nicking in the horse world), you will end up with an exceptional animal. The crosses listed above are some common crosses that hatcheries sell, they seem to line up the genetics just right to make a good producing chicken, but I am sure there are other crosses that turn out good too. You however should not use the offspring of the hybrid chickens for breeding, the reason being you will end up with bad traits showing up, the first generation is always the healthiest. It is entirely different story when you are developing a new breed though.
Which ones can I breed on my own, and which ones should I buy from the hatchery?
Most of the egg laying breeds are easy for the common poultry owner to breed, in fact since many of us pay attention to the production of our poultry you may end up with an even better chicken than you could buy at the hatchery. With any one of those I would say GO FOR IT! It is fun and rewarding to grow your own chickens, especially when they are good producers.
The Cornish Crosses on the other hand I would not recomend breeding, the reason being they really have the genetics stacked on the birds they breed. If the average poultry owner was to try to breed these, it would be highly unlikely they would be the fast growers you could buy at the hatchery. But to look on the positive side, Cornish Cross birds tend to be the cheapest birds in the whole hatchery because of the large quantities they are bought and sold in. Often times these hatcheries do not breed these birds on there own, but instead buy the eggs from some other company and then distribute them to us.
Note--When you breed a male and female sex link to each other, their offspring will not be sex linked, it just has to do with the genetics. Because apparently a female chicken tends to take their characteristics from the rooster, and vise versa. This does not always work, but does in the case of the sex links, I do not have a scientific answer to this one, but if I find one, I will post it.
Here are some interesting hybrids that I found someone selling on the internet once, they are a play on some more rare breeds, making them lay better:
Nova Ranger
Based off the RIR, they did not specify what it is crossed with, but it is red colored, so not quite as dark, sounds something like the production red.
Cuckoo Nova
Based on the Cuckoo Maran (prised for their really dark eggs), color is blue/grey and has a cream striped/speckled plumage, once again they do not give away what they crossed them with.
Amber Nova
Like the Nova Ranger, but instead is based on the Rhode Island White. Weighs slightly more than the RIR.
Blue Nova
No breed origins disclosed, all they say is it is one of the most popular and has a blue plumage.
Black Nova
RIR X Barred Rock, Basically a Black Sex Link.
Nova Noir
BAsed off the Resh Copper Black Maran (must be a relative of the Cuckoo Maran but solid black rather than barred).
Sussex Nova
Cross with the Light Sussex.
White Nova
Based off the utility Leghorn.
Silver Nova
Like the Sussex Nova, but instead based off the Silver Sussex.
Columbine
Based off the Cream Crested Legbar (blue egg laying chicken, an established breed that I believe is a spin off of the Aracauna, like the Amaraucana is but they are sex linked naturally, always)
Leave a comment talking about what you have done for hybrids, or with your questions. Everyone's feedback is appreciated!
Added 2/7/10
To learn more about egg color genetics read this article I wrote today.
Monday, March 16, 2009
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23 comments:
so I have a question what happens if you breed black or red sex link hens witha a male New Hampshire red or male Barred Rock ?
You will probably get nice chickens, but you will not get "true" sex linking. So you will not be able to tell at birth and the feathers will probably be a mix of colors. The reason is, they are no longer pure for the color they are carying.
Where you thinking of breeding some? If you do, you should tell us what you get!
Thanks for the comment!
if you breed a sex link with a purebreed then you will have a better chance of retaining the favorable egg laying characteristics
If you breed a sex link with a purebred, granted they are not from the same breeding stock, you should get a chicken of about the same quality. They will NOT be sex linked though, the colors will be pretty random. Obviously they will not be the same quality of the sex link, but that cross would be better than a sex link X sex link.
Hope that helps!
I have a question. What kind of hybrid chicken do you get if you cross a french black copper maran and a white leghorn, or a french black copper maran and a auracana?
The Black Maran and the White Leghorn cross may be similar to the silver hybrid. I do not know as much about this type of hybrid so I am not sure if you will have a "sex link" by color or not.
Breeding the Maran to the Araucana would not make any "documented" hybrid, but you could make your own name for them like the one breeding farm that bred the Amber Novas ect, or just call them a cross. Due to the variations in color of the Araucanas you will not end up with a "sex link" by color of fuzz at birth.
They will probably make great hybrids, and the brown color is dominant, so when breeding the Maran to the Leghorn, the offspring will also lay brown eggs. Also due to this, instead of having a blue egg from the offspring of the Maran/Araucana cross, you will get a green egg. The reason is the shell of the egg is blue, and the brown color is coated on the outside, since both the blue and the brown coloring is dominant. This creates the common green color seen by hatchery bred Ameraucanas more properly called Easter Egg Chickens.
Good luck! I would love to hear how your chicks turn out.
ok, very interesting...They are starting to hatch now. The first chick hatched from a white leghorn egg, the daddy is a french black copper maran with the feathering on the shanks. The chick however resemembles a white leghorn (is light colored), and has no feathering on shanks. It seems to be a good size chick that is comparable in size to my french black copper maran chicks.
Hmmm...interesting! I wonder if it will be a male because it took the mother's charecteristics of no feathering and the white color? But I just did a quick check on feathersite because I knew he had a pic of "Silver Barred Hybrids" on there. There is no picture of the female but the males are barred. The cross for that was a barred rock male and white rock female. You can see the picture at http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGP/Sex-link/BRKSexLink.html and scroll down a little bit. They also have a few comments regarding then too.
5 more chicks hatched now, they all look like carbon copies of their daddy, lol (french black copper marans). They have the feathering on their leggs too.
Super exciting! I hope you get some nice egg laying hens and they keep that really dark egg laying.
Maybe you can give me an answer, I had 7 white leghorn barred rock cross the cockrels looked like mamma/ white leghorns and the hens looked like dad/barred rock, but white. Out of the seven we had 5 cockerels we did give away the cockrels and kept our 2 hens, they seemed to grow extremely fast compared to the ones we bought would that be because it is cold out? The other we bought in the spring. We kept them in the garage with mom for a month or so, I can't remember if it was sept or oct when they hatched, mom was missing thought she was killed a drug off then shows up with babies we found her nest eventually and found unhatched frozen babies, why would she abandon them? This was a second batch. And do you know or have an idea of the color of egg to expect? Any info would be great. Tk you very much.
It sounds something like the silver barred hybrid, which is a white and barred rock cross. They are said to grow fast, at feathersite.com if you find the "sex link" chicken page, he had some photos on there of male silver barred hybrids that you can view.
For the second part I am a little confused. Sometimes a mother will abandon her chicks if something scares her off, we had this happen with our peahen. Also if those eggs were added later and they still were not going to hatch for a couple days, she could have left them to take care of her other babies.
Oh, and according to genetics, they should lay brown eggs!
hi i,m interested in the cross beeding i have just hatched an egg from a cross of welsummer cockerl and an ancona hen,the chick at about 11 days old is black bodied with a white breast and white wing tips do you think it will stay this colour.
I found previous comments very interesting. I have red sex link cross, RIR x White Rhode Island bought from a hatchery. My rooster is white with brown feather highlights. If I hatched out some of the eggs could I assume that their genetics would be sufficiently far apart to not compromise vitality? I realize the chicks would not be of sex link coloration, however, could I expect them to be of similar size, color and productivity as the hens they came from? Thanks for your insight.
I have bread many different breeds of chickens over the last 50 years. Presently I have White Leghorns, standard and miniature, commonly called bantam (this wasn't done of any chickens that had a standard size 40 years ago.)Also have Campine miniatures, Rhode Island Red miniatures as well as the standard size. Also have the true Rhode Island Reds (very dark, like the miniatures.)
Just wanted to say, I also like the Black Sex Links, and have raised from them with no apparent side effects. But a couple yeas ago I received eggs from a friend that were "supposed" to be Barred Rocks. When they hatched some were solid black (no white dot) so I assumed I had Sex Links. Then as they feathered there were little tuffs on the side of their heads. These grew up and they looked exactly like Sex Links except the tuffs. So I asked her and found she had a Araucana rooster get into her Barred Rock pen. I liked them but the young they raised looked like the Araucana, so I sold them! :)
Why doesn't anyone in the US breed Gingernut Rangers? It's a RIR X Light Sussex hybrid that's very popular in the UK. Omlet.com lists them as one of the best of the hybrids. Cold hardy, medium sized, great layers, not broody, good dispositions. I WILL find a couple and hope that they live up to what I've read in multiple places about them.
I honestly do not know the answer to that. It is a variety I am not familiar with, however it does sound like it could be very productive. I would love to hear about it if you do get some, sounds really interesting.
It seems like much of the "push" from the hatcheries here are the "sex-link" varieties, so that may be one of the reasons.
Very new to chicken keeping.I have a trio of silver qual bantams at present. but would like to have a go at breeding the following. What mix of breeds would be sex linked and produce blue eggs please?
So, I have a Black sex link rooster, since he is a hybrid should I hatch eggs that he has fertilized to my purebreds? I have RIR, cuckoo maran, barred rock, red production, buff orpingtons, and black aust. We got the incubator set up and were going to put about 14 eggs in, this is our first time hatching our own eggs. My daughter is 6 and is very excited about the not buying chicks this year and being able to watch our own hatch. But since the rooster is a hybrid already, would that be ok?
It will be just fine, just keep in mind they will be a "mutt" of sorts, but sometimes they are the best and most affectionate chickens :). They also will not be sex-linked by color, so do not expect that.
I would go for it if I was you, unless you are using them for show birds or something like that. But they should be nice healthy chicks.
I wish you luck on your hatching!
Okay what about breeding RIR roo over white cochin hen?
Hi,
I'm thinking of crossing Maran with Leghorn, to try and get chicks that lay a good quantity of brown eggs. Woudl it be best to get a Leghorn Cock with a Maran Hen, or the other way around?
Thanks
I believe to get the result you want, you should use a Maran rooster and leghorn hen. As a general rule of thumb (that allows for sex links), the characteristics in the pullet will come from the cockerel (father) and the cockerels characteristics will come from the hen (mother).
In theory, this should help pass down the egg color to the pullets. Honestly I am not sure if this general rule of thumb works exactly the same for egg color and it does feather color, but if I was doing the cross, it is what I would do. Feel free to share with me photos and how it worked out. I might even feature your story on this blog if you would like.
Thanks for reading my blog!!
Oh and to the commenter before, a RIR rooster to the white cochin hen should give you the result of a red sex link in color and will have thinner feathering on the legs and about halfway between the RIR and cochin in size.
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