Help ! 6 Week Old Lavender Orpington Cockerel or Pullet??

[Painted Calls]

Welcome to BYC! Looks like a pullet so far. Update at 8 weeks.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

She appears to be a pullet!

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I’m leaning pullet… here’s what my Lavender Orpington looked like around 6 weeks of age.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I hate sexing Lavender Orpingtons. lol

However, I am leaning towards cockerel. The legs are fairly thick, and that's a lot of wattle and comb development for a six-week-old pullet. My Lavender pullets don't even get pink until they are much older.

 

[RockyMountainHens]

Welcome to the BYC!! Looks like a pullet to me! My 2 LOs looked quite similar at that age. Though, there's always the possibility of it still being a roo. If it *is* a pullet, be ready for a bunch of personality! My LO keeps me laughing day after day. Here's some of her silly stories

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-daily-adventures-of-lavender.1563842/

Your LO looks beautiful !! Thanks for sharing!! I’ll be following along

 

[RockyMountainHens]

I would call it "maybe male" and wait a while longer.
I've seen a number of posts in the past with chicks that had big combs for their age, and some of them did turn out to be female.


If you are impatient for an answer, you could consider DNA sex testing:
https://orders.iqbirdtesting.com/order-bird-dna-test/
You send off a sample (a few plucked feathers or a few drops of blood-- they give instructions both ways), and the lab analyzes the DNA and lets you know which gender the bird is. Their website is currently estimating "2-4 working days" from the time they receive the sample. You get the results online, so no wait for the Post Office to get it back to you.

In most cases, it's easier to just wait for the chick to get older, and the test would cost more than the food the chick eats while it's growing, but sometimes it is worth the money to have definite results sooner.

Thank you for the response! I checked out the website. That’s super helpful. I’m considering sending in some feathers to be sure, but I think for now I’ll update you all with some pics at 8 weeks

 

[RockyMountainHens]

I’m leaning pullet… here’s what my Lavender Orpington looked like around 6 weeks of age.
View attachment 3438706

Thanks for the response! The photo is super helpful.

 

[WVduckchick]

At that age, and the tail being that long and pointy looking was always male in my flock.

 

[JedJackson]

It's a mixed bag of responses, which means you should wait a while and try again in a couple of weeks. Hope you get whatever gender you want!

 

[RockyMountainHens]

At that age, and the tail being that long and pointy looking was always male in my flock.

This is something that I’ve thought about and am concerned about as well.

At that age, and the tail being that long and pointy looking was always male in my flock.

That’s one of my concerns as well. It’s tail is pretty long and developed fairly quick