Packing Peanuts - what do you think?

I placed my first order EVER from Ideal Poultry to join the backyard farming community! I ordered 3 female pekin ducks and 4 barred rock pullets. One of my ducks unfortunately passed away during transit and one of my barred rocks passed away two days after arriving. NOW I am 99% sure I have one of my BRs is a roo and I am a little iffy about the other. I also think one of my ducks may actually be a drake!!
NEEDLESS TO SAY - this has been an AWFUL experience!!!


Now..............onto the actually point of this particular post



I received 13 "packing peanuts" with this delivery. I am hoping the person who sexed these "pullets" sexed the packing peanuts and that I could potentially get a pullet or two!!

Do you know what breed these chicks might be?
I was thinking sex links or production red or something?
Also, do you know any way I might know if they are actually pullets?
They are two weeks old today and a lot of them do have tail feathers already so I don't know how accurate that wives tale could be.........

Any ideas?

I can't help you on the breed just yet, since a lot of red breeds look like that as chicks, but I just wanted to let you know that Ideal sends their extra sexed rooster chicks as packing peanuts, usually sex links of some variety, so the chances are high that all or most of them are cockerels

It's also very early to be able to tell the sex of your ducks, but I will say vent sexing ducklings is much easier than chicks, so you're probably okay and have two females. You will be able to know for sure when they start to quack.

Sorry you've had such a bad experience with Ideal, I've ordered from them lots of times and never had a bad time with them.

Pyxis said:

I can't help you on the breed just yet, since a lot of red breeds look like that as chicks, but I just wanted to let you know that Ideal sends their extra sexed rooster chicks as packing peanuts, usually sex links of some variety, so the chances are high that all or most of them are cockerels

It's also very early to be able to tell the sex of your ducks, but I will say vent sexing ducklings is much easier than chicks, so you're probably okay and have two females. You will be able to know for sure when they start to quack.

Sorry you've had such a bad experience with Ideal, I've ordered from them lots of times and never had a bad time with them.

Click to expand...

X2 on Pyxis post; I would suggest posting your chicks pics again in about 6 weeks or so. By then the breed will be much more obvious.

Pyxis said:

I can't help you on the breed just yet, since a lot of red breeds look like that as chicks, but I just wanted to let you know that Ideal sends their extra sexed rooster chicks as packing peanuts, usually sex links of some variety, so the chances are high that all or most of them are cockerels

It's also very early to be able to tell the sex of your ducks, but I will say vent sexing ducklings is much easier than chicks, so you're probably okay and have two females. You will be able to know for sure when they start to quack.

Sorry you've had such a bad experience with Ideal, I've ordered from them lots of times and never had a bad time with them.

Click to expand...

x3

x 4

amshizzle said:

I placed my first order EVER from Ideal Poultry to join the backyard farming community! I ordered 3 female pekin ducks and 4 barred rock pullets. One of my ducks unfortunately passed away during transit and one of my barred rocks passed away two days after arriving. NOW I am 99% sure I have one of my BRs is a roo and I am a little iffy about the other. I also think one of my ducks may actually be a drake!!
NEEDLESS TO SAY - this has been an AWFUL experience!!!


Now..............onto the actually point of this particular post

I received 13 "packing peanuts" with this delivery. I am hoping the person who sexed these "pullets" sexed the packing peanuts and that I could potentially get a pullet or two!!

Do you know what breed these chicks might be?
I was thinking sex links or production red or something?
Also, do you know any way I might know if they are actually pullets?
They are two weeks old today and a lot of them do have tail feathers already so I don't know how accurate that wives tale could be.........

Click to expand...

Why are you sure some of your Rocks are cockerels at 2 weeks of age? Or the Pekin? For ducks, they are far easier to vent sex than chickens. Unlike cockerels drakes have sex organs that can be easily identified while vent sexing. Therefore it is almost impossible to get a mis-sexed drake. Barred birds for the most part can be sexed by their head spots, so it is unusual to have a mis-sexed cockerel.

The red packing peanuts are probably production red cockerels. You won't be able to tell between male and female on those for at least another 2-4 weeks. Though they are likely all male.

All the red packing peanuts I get from Ideal have been Rhode Island Reds, so I would say that's probably what they are. And all of the packing peanuts I have gotten from them have been accurately sexed male (I have gotten a LOT of them in the past few years).

Sorry to hear about the losses. I've been lucky enough to have all of mine arrive alive, though there were two d'Anver near dead with one order, but I managed to revive them. *knock on wood*

@keesmom I was under the assumption that a rock with predominantly white wings was a cockerel. I have one rock that is 90% white on his newly developing wings (significantly different that the other two) as well as the bright orange legs with no signs of black tint so I have been a little apprehensive about the sex. Is it possible that this little chick could feather out and actually get darker?

I'd guess all those red birds are Hatchery RIR cockerels. The barred bird in first photo has odd coloring in bottom fluff. Leads me to believe it's a black sex link cockerel.

As for the light colored Barred Rock, how about putting all the black birds in a few photos. Words mean something but don't compare to a photo.

I will take additional pictures this evening for comparison! Thank you!