Sumatra Thread! - Page 81

Oh the joys of sumatra chicks. The older chicks already flew out of the brooder so they went to the cages in the shed. Well now the 2 week old sumatra chicks are roosting on the edge of the brooder. They grow up so fast!

I hear you FMP, my Sumatra chicks are little hellions. I moved them from the house to the garage when they started roosting on the side of their brooder, leaving little chickie presents all over the hardwood... then in the garage they learned to fly and starting to roost in the low rafters! The older chicks would hop up on the side of the brooder and fly up to the low hanging beams, then they would huddle squished together because they got cold... it was then that I decided to put a lid on their new larger brooder area.

After selling any Black and Blue chicks I am left now with 5 Dun chicks and 3 Platinum chicks. I feel like this will be a good start to the project, my next plan is outcrossing to a line of SQ BBS birds. I've already seen improvements in these young birds though, my original Platinum cock had feather stubs on his legs when he hatched, only 2 of his offspring showed stubs at hatch and they have now completely disappeared.. Their overall size seems to be bigger too.

Question? I have some young sumatra chicks. It is the first time I have raised this breed. How old do the chicks have to be before you can sex them? My oldest ones are 3 months old and I think I have a pair of them. I know one is a pullet because it has developed its tail feathers real fast. The other one I think is a cockerel. Its tail has not developed yet. Is this one way of sexing this breed? I also have 8 young bantam sumatras that I hatched out. All of them have developed tails already. They are only 2 months old. Is it possible they are all pullets? I will take some pics and post them later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcrooke45 

Question? I have some young sumatra chicks. It is the first time I have raised this breed. How old do the chicks have to be before you can sex them? My oldest ones are 3 months old and I think I have a pair of them. I know one is a pullet because it has developed its tail feathers real fast. The other one I think is a cockerel. Its tail has not developed yet. Is this one way of sexing this breed? I also have 8 young bantam sumatras that I hatched out. All of them have developed tails already. They are only 2 months old. Is it possible they are all pullets? I will take some pics and post them later.

My bantam sumatras

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcrooke45 

Question? I have some young sumatra chicks. It is the first time I have raised this breed. How old do the chicks have to be before you can sex them? My oldest ones are 3 months old and I think I have a pair of them. I know one is a pullet because it has developed its tail feathers real fast. The other one I think is a cockerel. Its tail has not developed yet. Is this one way of sexing this breed? I also have 8 young bantam sumatras that I hatched out. All of them have developed tails already. They are only 2 months old. Is it possible they are all pullets? I will take some pics and post them later.

My older pair

mcrooke: I'm lousy at sexing Sumatra until they have male feathering in, although I am going to try to start feather sexing at hatch to see how accurate that is.

I have been trying very hard to capture the difference between the dun and black Sumatra chicks on camera now that I have both of similar age and there's been questions about the chick coloration (there are exactly zero pictures of dun Sumatra chicks out there for research). While I can tell the difference visually, the camera just doesn't seem to show the colors well at all - but I think I succeeded (finally).

In the first photo of chicks in the hand...the black chick is out of shipped eggs from forum poster flyingmonkeypoop. The dun is by jeremy's platinum rooster and from my black hens. In the SECOND photo, the dun is out of FMP's shipped eggs and the black is out of my own black stock. A platinum hatched from Jeremy's rooster also, but those are easy to spot given they are so light. The dun's feathers are basically a dark brown instead of black as they grow in....something you can just barely see in the second picture, whereas dilutions like the dark blues (which I confused with possibly being dun last year) seem to have a slate cast to the feathers instead of brown.

I'll be breeding the duns back to the blacks until I get good type at which point I'll go for khaki, but getting the multiple spurs and feathering on the duns first is a priority. I'm not sure how much success you can have with double dilutes having a dark face, but I expect that the single dilutes should have fully dark faces before trying for the doubles.

It looks just like the other dun, in the window, if you place them side by side..same tones on their fluff and also on their wing feathers coming in. And the one in the window can't be blue - no blue parents.  Here are two blue chicks although these were taken last year...I actually thought the second chick was a splash it was so light, but it feathered out a darker blue than the first chick, who turned out the lightest blue:

These chicks as adults:

Top chick:

Bottom chick:

SO EXCITED!!!  Getting my Sumatra chicks this weekend!!!!