Roo or pullet? What to do?

We have chicks that will be 7 weeks old on Wednesday and we have put them (9 of them) in a small chicken tractor to free range and get some air during the day. This morning a chick (black copper maran?) was grabbing one of the little light sussex chicks by the comb, what little comb that she has. I am not sure if this black one is a roo or a pullet. I know that they are young but does anyone have any ideas?















Any ideas? Roo? Pullet? Or whatever 7 week old females are called.

The color of that chick is blue It's a boy

Boy!

Wow, it's a boy...yay! If he is the dad (when he grows up) breeding with Cuckoo Marans...what will I have? Is that a breed?

It would still be marans, but I don't think it will make a specific color, but I bet they will be super pretty!!!

What you'd get from that cross would be sex-linked chicks. Barred boys and solid colour girls.

ipf wrote:What you'd get from that cross would be sex-linked chicks. Barred boys and solid colour girls.

Some of them would be blue too. Barred and nonbarred.

Although with the Copper Marans, which are basically gold birchen (I think they have some Ar too) would you still get the sex linkage with an ER bird. Don't have time today to get the books out, maybe someone else knows the answer.

coopslave wrote:

ipf wrote:What you'd get from that cross would be sex-linked chicks. Barred boys and solid colour girls.

Some of them would be blue too. Barred and nonbarred.

Although with the Copper Marans, which are basically gold birchen (I think they have some Ar too) would you still get the sex linkage with an ER bird. Don't have time today to get the books out, maybe someone else knows the answer.

And suddenly, I'd like to get my hands on a few cuckoo marans... Darn!

My understanding (and observation) is that the B locus operates independently - if a bird carries a B allele (or 2) it's barred; if it doesn't, it isn't.

Actually one of my nighbours traded one of my young BC Marans roos for a couple of older cuckoo marans hens for exactly that purpose (sex-linked chicks), and it worked.