DOMINANT BARRED D 959 is an attractive coloured program reminiscent of the Barred Plymouth Rock breed. It is very popular as final hybrid for self-sufficient farms in many countries. Owing to its attractive colouring, it is used for exporting parent breeding pairs. In many countries, the laying hens of this hybrid are used for laying eggs and capons for fattening. The asset is the high productivity, namely laying over 310 eggs, verified in the cage intensive farming conditions at a testing station.
This program is the result of cross breeding fast feathering barred BPR with allele of the recessive gene "k" for feathering rate "K/k" paternal population and the slow feathering Rhode Island Red (RIR) with a dominant allele "K" maternal population. When hatching one-day-old chickens, feather sexing using the "K/k" allele is applied, where one-day-old cockerel acquires the dominant allele of this "K" gene from the mother and is slow feathering and one-day-old hen acquires the recessive "k" allele from the father and is fast feathering, which is evident on one- day-old chickens’ flight feathers.
