These are our four little girls at one-month old. The scraggly one closest to us with the white is Moya, to her left is Zahn, behind her, the other black bird is Chianna, and the red one in the background is Aeryn. Yes, they are the Farscape Foursome. Moya and Aeryn are red-sex links. In our case, they are a cross between a Rhode Island red hen and a white leghorn rooster. (I've noticed that many hatcheries sell and advertise this hybrid as simply a "hybrid" or comets....some are crosses of other breeds, such as Delawares). The black chickens are black-sex links. This is a cross between a Barred Rock hen and a Rhode Island red rooster. Apparently, the black-sex link is very popular in Scotland. If you are unsure as to what the term, "sex link" means, it is quite simple: at birth the gender of the chicks can be obtained by the color of the down. For example, with the red-sex link, the pullet (future hen) is red while the cockeral is white.
We chose the black- and red-sex links because they came highly recommended at the feed store. Our principle concerns were that we wanted friendly chickens, good layers, and birds that were cold tolerant. These birds are now nine-months old and are friendly, fantastic layers (averaging 5 eggs per bird per week), and do very well in our northern New Hampshire winter (we've been 20s and 30s below zero for days at a time).
