D cocky farm

DcockyD

In the Brooder
Oct 2, 2015
15
0
24
The family has just started our chicken farm with a group of what we thought was 12 pullets. We lost 1 the first night. The other chiks pushed him out of the heat. Another was lost Monday. The rest are doing great and are already trying to flap their wings.
We have discovered that 4 of the pullets are rues. We wanted to have 10 hens for laying and would worry about getting a rue layer, but we already love the boys.
The original chiks are 6 days old today, an we picked up 5 more pullets. Sexed them ourselves this time since the place before gave us so many males. Hoping now we have 11 hens for our 4 rues.
We have 6 black astie's, one is a rue. 3 buff orphinton's, one is a male. 3 New Hampshire reds, one male. And 3 isa browns, one is male.
Waiting for them to get close to same size before we mix them together. The children have been enjoying caring for them when we remind them. Playing with them is always on their mind, just not cleaning the brooder.
We have 2 dogs we have been working on sensitizing them to the chiks. They mostly just want to taste them. :) we are not trying to sensitize the cats to them. They really like chicken.
 
We aren't comfortable enough to check the cloaca but I have heard a few times to check the wings. A female will have wing feathers in a line where as males have longer tip feathers on the wing and the rest line up. Only 4 of the chicks have have the longer wing tips. We have 3 that are jump gliding out of their brooder. One is our biggest male and the other 2 are the biggest females. The male is our buff orphinton and he is super loving and will try to fly into my hands when I sit next to them. He loves his chest to be rubbed.
 
Feather sexing unfortunately only works some of the time with a few breeds ... In 4-6 weeks you will see if your guesses are right ... ;)
 
The USA are yellow with brown stripes so yay females! The wing feathers on my red is all deep reddish brown while the other 2 have white stripes in theirs.
 
So all three ISA Browns are the same color? If so ... They are all the same gender.

The other three breeds you have are not "sex-linked" ... If they are varing colors ... They must not be purebreds.
 
From what've can tell we only have one roo. His name is Sky and he was one of the smaller chicks, but he has found his place. At 11 weeks old none of the oter 15 chicks are displaying signs of being a male. We were easily able to identify sky when he his 7 weeks and began to develope a bright red comb. He is the first out of the chicken house each morning and the last in each night. Keeping his flock in check and safe like a good little rooster.
 

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