Can someone tell me what breed these chicks are?

[midwifebeth]

I am being offered 3 baby chicks. Can anyone tell me what breed they look like? And how old do they look? The lady who is giving them to me doesn't know either.

 

[Barrdwing]

Hmm. Are they definitely purebred? If they are, that makes it easier to figure out. With purebreds, you can look at leg color, comb type, extra toes, presence or absence of leg feathering, etc. and narrow down the choices quite a lot. If they might be crossbreeds, however, then we've got a challenge on our hands. Not that they won't be pretty adults! There are some beautiful mixes out there. But they might not confess their breeding until they get to be a couple of months old.

Age-wise, I'd put them at approximately 7 days old.

The chick on the left appears to be a blue, and the wing feathers appear barred to me. I got chicks like this when my Barred Rock hen and blue Andalusian roo had kids.

The chick closest to the front has some wonderful wildtype "chipmunk" striping going on, very vivid contrast. I'm honestly not sure, as a lot of breeds will show this type of marking.

The chick to the rear of the group likewise could be of any one of many different breeds. The basic patterning looks like a very dilute wildtype coloration.

 

[midwifebeth]

Thanks for commenting! I'm definitely a novice when it comes to chickens. I've been building my first chicken coop and decided to get 2 hens. These were offered to me free. The owner bought them to take pictures for Easter. She is a photographer. My heart melted when I saw them because I wanted 3 different looking birds but know nothing about breeds. I have no idea if they are pure breed or not. She bought them from a feed store.

 

[Barrdwing]

Feed stores do tend to order from hatcheries this time of year, which pushes the probability of these being purebred up several notches.

They are very cute chicks, certainly, and I agree, having a variety of colors in the flock is lots of fun!

If you want to see photos of different breeds of chick, you can check out www.feathersite.com which has tons and tons of chicken photos. There are more breeds listed there than I ever dreamed existed! But likeliest is that the feed store would have stocked more "standard" breeds, such as Orpingtons, Rocks, Leghorns, etc. So that will narrow down the choices.

Fortunately a chicken doesn't have to be purebred to be a great pet. Some of my favorite birds in our flock are mutts. Have fun with these little fluffballs!

 

[midwifebeth]

I went to the feed store to ask more about the chicks I got. They showed me this poster and said my chicks should be one of these breeds. I'm figuring the yellow one looks most like an Orpington and the strip one looks most an Easter Egger in this picture. What do you think? They are 11 days old today. Probably about 7 days when the picture was taken. I will take more pictures when they arrive today. I'm supposed to get them delivered to me today.

 

[juliechick]

What color are the striped ones' legs? It looks more like a Brown Leghorn than an EE. If it has yellow legs, I'd bet it's a Leghorn.

 

[perditafoster]

I think the EE are supposed to have a beard and/or muffs, even at this age, and I can't tell if your striped baby has that. Too cute, though!

 

[goldfinches]

I guess Rhode Island Red, (yellow one), Wyandotte, (striped one), and either Australorp or Marans, (blue/gray one)

 

[debid]

Speckled Sussex also begin life as chipmunks. They have white skin so the legs would be pink.

 

[midwifebeth]

Okay here are more pictures. I also stopped by the feed store that sold them and he told me that they got a batch of chickens of "various breeds" and showed me a poster. I took a picture of the poster. So what do you think???