Pullets or Roos? Any Help Appreciated!

Here are our four chickie babies. A Cuckoo Maran, a Rhode Island Red, a Golden Sex Link, and an Amaracauna. We got them on Valentine's Day, love birds! I have a sneaking suspicion at least one is a roo Would love your thoughts!

Maran is totally a dude, everyone else looks fairly pullet-y

The Marans is a cockerel. The Ameraucana is an Easter Egger, and with that patchy red coming in on the shoulders, looks like it might be a cockerel too.

Yeah, I was pretty certain on the Maran. He is so skiddish and crazy. As for the EE, is it common to buy Amaracauna chicks from the feed store and have them be EE after all? Fingers are still crossed for her to be a her - even tho she is really skiddish and doesn't like to be held either.

The other two can't wait to jump into your hand!

juliebrown said:

Yeah, I was pretty certain on the Maran. He is so skiddish and crazy. As for the EE, is it common to buy Amaracauna chicks from the feed store and have them be EE after all? Fingers are still crossed for her to be a her - even tho she is really skiddish and doesn't like to be held either.

The other two can't wait to jump into your hand!

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You can't find REAL Amaracaunas at a feedstore, they're all EE's

Real hatchery Ameraucana cost a lot of money, about $20 per chick, and only 3 hatcheries currently have them.
Most hatcheries have Easter Eggers, but call them Ameraucana to get an extra dollar more per chick for them.
It's false marketing, but they get away with it by saying that since there is no recognized breed called Easter Egger, so they have to call them Ameraucana.
One of the biggest lies in the chick industry.

junebuggena said:

Real hatchery Ameraucana cost a lot of money, about $20 per chick, and only 3 hatcheries currently have them.
Most hatcheries have Easter Eggers, but call them Ameraucana to get an extra dollar more per chick for them.
It's false marketing, but they get away with it by saying that since there is no recognized breed called Easter Egger, so they have to call them Ameraucana.
One of the biggest lies in the chick industry.

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Wow, I had no idea. But I guess I'm not that surprised. Our last attempt at chicks a year ago ended up w all roosters. Hoping for a diff outcome this round!

If you don't want to have roos you would be better off getting pullets. still a roo might sneek in here or there but your chances are a LOT better to get more females than if you buy straight run. some can be sexed by color and the sexing is very accurate. I know feed lot and hatcheries alike offer sexed females for a small amount more. I think My female barred rocks were three dollars and some. However some breeds females are a LOT more. I paid ten dollars for one female Golden cuckoo Maran. so depending on breed females can be a few cents more to a lot more. Hope this helps. However if you WANTED males then straight run is definitely the way to go!!

realsis said:

If you don't want to have roos you would be better off getting pullets. still a roo might sneek in here or there but your chances are a LOT better to get more females than if you buy straight run. some can be sexed by color and the sexing is very accurate. I know feed lot and hatcheries alike offer sexed females for a small amount more. I think My female barred rocks were three dollars and some. However some breeds females are a LOT more. I paid ten dollars for one female Golden cuckoo Maran. so depending on breed females can be a few cents more to a lot more. Hope this helps. However if you WANTED males then straight run is definitely the way to go!!

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Thanks for the info! I was told that they are sexes prior to getting to the feed store and that they have about a 95% chance of being female - sounds like I was misled! At least they are exchanging the Roos for ladies for me. Appreciate the info!!

juliebrown said:

Thanks for the info! I was told that they are sexes prior to getting to the feed store and that they have about a 95% chance of being female - sounds like I was misled! At least they are exchanging the Roos for ladies for me. Appreciate the info!!

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well usually the hatcheries say that sexing the birds are 90 to 95 % accurate. That's a "incase" percentage given if someone makes a mistake while sexing the bird and a Rooster sneaks in here and there.They can't guarantee 100% accuracy because the sexing is done by workers at such a high volume of chicks that no doubt a rooster will get snuck in here or there. I'm sure the people are trained well I think that the sheer volume of chicks is likely what gives the percentage error. But if you think about it 5 to 10 percent error with that high of volume isn't really that bad. Most hatcheries hatch THOUSANDS of chicks each week and people sex that volume of chicks so of course there are bound to be mistakes here and there. However with STRAIGHT RUN there is NO WAY to tell you the percentage of female to male ratio because STRAIGHT RUN chicks are taken directly from the hatching area and NOT SEXED AT ALL. They are boxed directly after hatch. There is no way to guess a sex percentage because TOO MANY FACTORS come into play. The chicks are litterly boxed after hatch so one box could have three females one box could have no females one could have 7 females ect. there is just no telling. so by him saying 95% of straight run is female that's just wrong. in fact, usually you will get more male than female. also with buying from a farm store you run the risk of someone skilled at picking females from straight run and that leaves even more males . just a tip for the future , you CAN research the breeds your looking for female traits in chicks and then YOU can pick the females from the batches! I know with the Barred Rocks the females tend to be darker than males, have a more cleaner head spot, and darker legs. little tricks like that and you will be able to compare the birds in the bin and pick the females yourself. Don't let staff pick for you! This way you will be more likely to get females. Hope this helps a little.