Please help sex my peafowl!

[KsKingBee]

Yea, no that's what I mean, the one that everybody is saying is cameo is a bit darker/ richer than the ones I'm seeing in these pics, I totally agree with you! Anybody have any pics of the purples around her age (3 months)? Let's compare!!! Lol this is turning into a dang mystery!

Yes, here is a purple at about three months bottom center of pic, and a cameo pied displaying in the doorway.

 

[KsKingBee]

More purple hen, three months.

 

[DylansMom]

Couldn't hurt

But the question I'm asking isn't about that dark hen, it's about the one that folks are speculating is cameo... I'm wondering (and could be totally, totally wrong), whether that other bird (the one being called cameo) might possibly be a purple hen, rather than a cameo hen... But I am sooooo not an expert.

@DylansMom did you happen to look closely at the more red-brown bird in the very first post on this thread, and compare it to the colors of the background objects & earth under it, etc.? There's two pictures of it... It just seems to me that it might be a little dark/richly colored to be a cameo???

Whatever she is, she's pretty

Everything in that first picture seems to have a reddish tint to me, so I was thinking it was the angle of the sun. It does look too dark and too red for a cameo in that one, but in these more recent pics it looks exactly like a cameo. By 12 weeks we should be seeing a darkening of the breast feathers on a purple so a better pic of the chest would be helpful. I went to look at 5 cameos last week to help sex them and see if any were peach( dad is split to peach and there are 2 peach hens) 4 looked just like this one, who appears to have white wing feathers, and one was very "orangey" so I'm thinking that one was a peach.

Look at Zaz's Cameo hen again, especially the picture of her chest/breast feathers and compare them to my Purple who is 6 months in this picture, you can see the darker color.

 

[KsKingBee]

Everything in that first picture seems to have a reddish tint to me, so I was thinking it was the angle of the sun. It does look too dark and too red for a cameo in that one, but in these more recent pics it looks exactly like a cameo. By 12 weeks we should be seeing a darkening of the breast feathers on a purple so a better pic of the chest would be helpful. I went to look at 5 cameos last week to help sex them and see if any were peach( dad is split to peach and there are 2 peach hens) 4 looked just like this one, who appears to have white wing feathers, and one was very "orangey" so I'm thinking that one was a peach.

Look at Zaz's Cameo hen again, especially the picture of her chest/breast feathers and compare them to my Purple who is 6 months in this picture, you can see the darker color.

What signs do you look for in a Cameo when trying to determine sex? How old does it have to be to see those things?

 

[Hannah15]

I'm certainly no expert, but none of my purples have been or are that light. Also none, not even the males, have started getting any color on their necks or chest by 12 weeks. (My youngest is just over 12 weeks.) When I get on a real computer I will post pictures.

 

[DylansMom]

What signs do you look for in a Cameo when trying to determine sex? How old does it have to be to see those things?

The ones I went to look at were all between 10 and 20 weeks. The youngest (at 10 weeks) was the one I was most certain was a male and was also the orangey looking one I think may be a Peach. They were all barred wing birds as well.....no BS. I was looking for stripes on the wings and at the breast feathers. At about 10-12 weeks you can start to see a difference in those breast feathers. @zazouse and I have mentioned this before so I know she knows what to look for there. If I can find good pictures that show the difference I'll post them, if not, maybe she can find some to post. It is of course hard to explain verbally, but a hen's breast feathers will look like fish scales solid color in the center with a wide, uniform lighter colored edge. Male's breast feathers are often not solid in the center they can have a bisecting lighter line or appear to have dots of darker color and the lighter edge is not as wide and uniform.




Blow up the picture above. The 2 in the front are boys, the one in the doorway is a girl, notice how much busier the breast pattern is on the boys, the girl has a nice scalloped or fish scale look to her breast feathers as well as the nice wide light edge on each feather.



This picture is a bit blurry but it really shows the dots of color on this pied males breast feathers. A hen would have a solid center on those feathers. Make any sense???

 

[DylansMom]

I'm certainly no expert, but none of my purples have been or are that light. Also none, not even the males, have started getting any color on their necks or chest by 12 weeks. (My youngest is just over 12 weeks.) When I get on a real computer I will post pictures.

As light as which ones? Are they by any chance Purple BS?

 

[Garden Peas]

The ones I went to look at were all between 10 and 20 weeks. The youngest (at 10 weeks) was the one I was most certain was a male and was also the orangey looking one I think may be a Peach. They were all barred wing birds as well.....no BS. I was looking for stripes on the wings and at the breast feathers. At about 10-12 weeks you can start to see a difference in those breast feathers. @zazouse and I have mentioned this before so I know she knows what to look for there. If I can find good pictures that show the difference I'll post them, if not, maybe she can find some to post. It is of course hard to explain verbally, but a hen's breast feathers will look like fish scales solid color in the center with a wide, uniform lighter colored edge. Male's breast feathers are often not solid in the center they can have a bisecting lighter line or appear to have dots of darker color and the lighter edge is not as wide and uniform.




Blow up the picture above. The 2 in the front are boys, the one in the doorway is a girl, notice how much busier the breast pattern is on the boys, the girl has a nice scallored or fish scale look to her breast feathers as well as the nice wide light edge on each feather.



This picture is a bit blurry but it really shows the dots of color on this pied males breast feathers. A hen would have a solid center on those feathers. Make any sense???

Thanks, @DylansMom , see, I knew there were people who were way better at this than I am

@TXPeacockLady , sounds like it would be really helpful to have better photos of that cocoa-colored bird, especially the chest from the front and the side, and straight down on the bird from the top, in as crisp a focus as you can manage with a mobile pea

Probably need to be fairly close to the bird to see well...

DylansMom, can you explain the difference between how a purple hen and a purple BS hen would look at this age?

Thanks so much!

 

[Hannah15]

As light as which ones? Are they by any chance Purple BS?

As light as the OP's chick. And no, they are not purple black shoulder. I will take new pictures tonight, but for now I will repost a picture I took a couple weeks ago of the one that I kept. I also had two males that I sold that still had no color on their necks when I sold them. I will have to look back to be sure of their age when I sold them though.

This is a purple pied hen (pretty sure I'm correct on the gender). The colors are pretty close to how they look in person. She is approximately 15 weeks in this picture. This is the lightest (in the brown area's) she has ever looked.

I realized the other picture I posted of the male purple I kept is pretty dark so I will wait to post him until I get new pictures this evening. But he is a lot darker than the OP's chick as well. I have some terrible cell phone pictures (including of the two males I sold) but for whatever reason I CANNOT get them to email to myself, so I'm sorry but I cannot post them.

Also, I'm sorry this picture is so big, I had to copy and paste it because I am on a different computer from the one that it is saved on.

Like I said, I am certainly no expert, but the OP's chick just doesn't look anything like any of my purples.

 

[DylansMom]

Thanks, @DylansMom , see, I knew there were people who were way better at this than I am

@TXPeacockLady , sounds like it would be really helpful to have better photos of that cocoa-colored bird, especially the chest from the front and the side, and straight down on the bird from the top, in as crisp a focus as you can manage with a mobile pea

Probably need to be fairly close to the bird to see well...

DylansMom, can you explain the difference between how a purple hen and a purple BS hen would look at this age?

Thanks so much!

A Black Shouldered hen of pretty much any color is going to be mostly a creamy white color. That is just how the BS hens are, think about IB hens and IBBS hens, that cream/white color shows up in Cameo BS, Bronze BS, Purple BS, etc.....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ckshoulder-pea-hen-mate-plus-their-two-chicks

The thread above has pics of a Purple BS hen. She is an adult, but they are light all their life even as chicks and juveniles they will not be tan all over like a regular purple, they will be a cream/white color with speckles of color.