Production Red’s Gender Identity

Production reds should be sex linked, but these might not be production reds with pea combs
So if they are real production reds they would be pullets, because they would be sex linked, so they males would be mostly white.
However, as there was some doubt about it I'm wondering if they aren't actually sexlinked, in which case the only way to tell at this age is comb and wattles size/colour, and general build. I am going with pullets at this point, but if they get any more colour in their combs they might be cockerels.
At 10 to 12 weeks of age if cockerels they will get new saddle feather that will be pointed, coming though.
Production reds are generally not sex-linked, they’re a New Hampshire red x Rhode Island red cross.
 
I had a hatchery production red roo who sired some progeny. They were obviously roosters by 3 weeks. Half the pullets turned pink and stayed that way, with no comb growth, around 3-5 weeks. Roo comb growth started at 3 weeks for mine. But since these are from a breeder, not a hatchery, I don't know what you'll see. These look like pullets to me. Early comb growth with large combs is a characteristic of production reds, usually, so the roos are obvious early.
 
I had a hatchery production red roo who sired some progeny. They were obviously roosters by 3 weeks. Half the pullets turned pink and stayed that way, with no comb growth, around 3-5 weeks. Roo comb growth started at 3 weeks for mine. But since these are from a breeder, not a hatchery, I don't know what you'll see. These look like pullets to me. Early comb growth with large combs is a characteristic of production reds, usually, so the roos are obvious early.
should i hang onto them longer? the guy i got em from told me i can bring them back and switch them out. As weeks go on my noticing the combs getting redder and redder unfortunately
 
should i hang onto them longer? the guy i got em from told me i can bring them back and switch them out. As weeks go on my noticing the combs getting redder and redder unfortunately
It's up to you. Kind of hard to tell from pictures exactly how red they are. My female PR mixes, half of them were light pink from around 3-4 wks, while the others were the expected yellow/pink / pale pink. But the roos were obviously darker pink around 5-6 wks. Around 15 wks is generally when male-specific feathering shows up (sickle and hackle feathers). You can watch behavior and try to tell from that also, and from how they interact with your known roos. If the farmer is willing to take them back, holding on to them a little longer can't hurt.

If you upload some more zoomed in pictures with higher resolution, we might be able to help a bit more.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom