Help with breed and gender.

[bethstarcher]

Hi! I have some chicks 8-10 weeks old and am trying to figure out gender and breed. I'm not for sure if I'm rigjt, so I thought I'd ask some other, more knowledgeable chicken people. We have 6 comets and 6 isa Brown's right now...so, these newbies are something very new for us. Thanks! We have 20, including one larger/older colorful roo. I felt bad for him because the other birds he was with were bigger and bullied him and the poor thing has a bum leg.

 

[rebrascora]

I would say they are barnyard mixes. I think there maybe be some Australorp parentage and probably some EE genes in there and there are some with black skin which may indicate silkie genetics or even an Ayam Cemani parent. I think you will be lucky if there is a single pure breed amongst them but that doesn't mean to say that they won't be good egg layers.... at least the pullets amongst them anyway... I doubt the cockerels will be laying many eggs

.

In the first picture the black bird in the centre with the blurry head is almost certainly a cockerel as it has a red comb.
The second picture, the two colourful ones on the right are males
The third photo I would guess is one of those males again in the centre.
I could go on but it would take too much time and others have pointed them out.

I think it would help if you picked out those which have red combs or some red colouring on their shoulders and wings and take individual close up photos of them, so that we can have a good look and confirm each one. Then get some leg rings and mark those that have been identified as definitely male, otherwise you are probably going to lose track of them again until you develop an eye for spotting them. I would also suggest you set up a grow out pen for the males as once they hit adolescence in a few weeks, the pullets are going to get a seriously hard time.

 

[donrae]

Where did the birds come from? Are they from a hatchery or a breeder? What were they sold as?

I see a couple cockerels, the bright red birds (I think there are two?) with red combs are male.

In this picture, the birds to the far left and right are male, the others look female. And looking back, I"m not as positive on the one on the left, a better pic of it would help. But if it's the same bird as in the last pic, it's a cockerel.

Most of the black and blue birds look female. At this age you're looking for red combs, and males will usually start getting red patches on the wings.

 

[bethstarcher]

I got them from a free range farm. They hatched some and some were hatched by the mom. I also have 10 3-4 week old chicks that we are going to end up selling because three are sullied, which I didn't want and there aren't enough of the others to have a full flock. We ended up with more than we need for a full flick with the older ones. I was supposed to get between 12-20 and ended up with 30ish. They didn't have them ready to go, so there were 4adults and 4 kids chasing chickens and didn't really get to check most of them or keep good count.

 

[junebuggena]

They all look like Easter Eggers or Easter Egger mixes. Deep, rusty red on the shoulder/wing area and bright pink combs at that age are indicators of cockerels.

 

[bethstarcher]

Thanks. So, there is one greyish one with some reds and Brown's but no red comb... Is that a boy or a girl? We were wanting astrolorps, Easter eggers/ameracuna, barred rock and black sex links. These are much different at this age than our comets, which all have big combs and waddles even though they're hens...so I've been a little confused.

 

[junebuggena]

See the two on the right? See how they both have the same shade of dark red on their wing/shoulder area? That's what you are looking for. That's the dreaded 'rooster red'. And they grey one, while the comb isn't really red due to 'gypsy face', it is very well developed. And gypsy face is caused by certain melanizing genes, the dark pigment generally fades as they get a bit older.

 

[bethstarcher]

Thank you! That's such a shame...the grey, brown and red one is sooo pretty...I was really hoping it was a hen. So, with the astralorps, barred rock and black sex links am I also looking for red combs? Are there any other things I should look for with them to know if they are hens or tipsters?

 

[donrae]

I don't see any barred Rocks

But yeah, at this age you're looking at the combs mostly. Cockerels will be leggier, and the reddish coloring on the wings (or any brightly colored bird that makes you say Wow, it's so pretty

) is a male thing.

 

[bethstarcher]

Ok...what are the grey/black/whitish birds... ?... We thought those were barred rocks. I'm pretty sure that's what they told me. Are they something else?