Guess that Gender!

[LateBirdFarms]

I'm doing this for my own research, as I've always dealt with sexlinks and ready to lay birds and only raised sexlinks from chicks with no gender fluidity confusion! (Please don't take offence if I've used the wrong term here, I'm trying desperately to stay in touch with the times!) I also figured it wouldn't hurt to show off my babies, including the awkward teen Black Copper Marans with their feathers poking through their downy softness!

Please feel free to comment your own guesses/informed predictions/ dream premonitions!

These pics weren't the best, I tried, I really did, but they weren't very cooperative models!

Let's start with those gangly teens, my three BCMs. They just hit 2 weeks when I took these, and their a day away from 3 weeks now, so I'll have to update again soon!

1st & 2nd pics are Basil
Roo maybe? Biggest comb, are those little wattles I see? Pretty peachy though...

3rd & 4th pics are Penny
I'm hoping this one is a she, being the sweetest and the one with the littlest comb)

Pics below are Ducky (as in the land before time dinosaur.. just because of the dino vulture look ) No idea where to start guessing with this one!!

 

[LateBirdFarms]

Didn't know if that first post would be too pic heavy, so this one is my other babies

Silver Laced Wyandotte #1 - Week1

(Feather check - Pullet)

SLWyandotte #2 - Week 1

(Feather check - Pullet)

Hamburg Silkie cross #1 - Week 1
there was no cooperation here, just nap time and babies falling on their faces. (Feather check at 2 days - 2 Pullets, 1 Roo)

Isbar - Blue - Week 1

(Feather check 2days - Pullet)

EE/OE #1 - Trinket (Smallest before my Silkie crosses showed up) - Week 1

Wing size doubled in 2 days! Hope this doesn't signify a roo! (feather check at 2 days = Pullet)

EE/OE #2 - Fizgig - Week 1

(Feather Check at 2 days - Undetermined, 3 days - Pullet)

Yes, I am aware the feather sexing doesn't always give you an accurate answer, and you always have a 50/50 chance at guessing sex, but it seemed less foolish than swinging a ring on a string, so I thought I'd keep track just for fun!

If my feather checking works though.. I've won the pullet lottery! Fingers crossed!

 

[chrissynemetz]

Your chicks are so cute! Do you have any updated pictures of them?

 

[NatJ]

Please feel free to comment your own guesses/informed predictions/ dream premonitions!

I think Basil the BCM is a cockerel--that little wattle looks distinctly pink, compared with what the others have (and even compared with his own comb.)

Penny the BCM I agree might be a pullet, if she's the same age as Basil. It's so handy to have several of the same kind to compare!

Trinket and Fizgig, the EE/OE: chicks are barred. Do you know whether both parents were barred, or just one, and if so which one? (Barred mother passes barring only to her sons. So if the mother is barred but the father is not, then you have cockerels. But if the father is barred, he can pass the gene to his sons and his daughters, no matter what the mother looks like. So if the father is barred, I have no clue what gender those two are.)

Silkie cross: no clue. I don't do silkies.

Isbar: if the breed is supposed to be barred, then that is probably a pullet. But online photos of adults do not show barring, so I'll go with "no clue."

For the rest, I'm somewhere between "guessing" and "making things up," but I'll put my ideas here because I'd like to know later how wrong I was

Ducky: I see (or imagine I see) just a bit of color under the chin, where wattles will eventually be. So I'll guess cockerel.

Silver Laced Wyandottes #1 and #2:
I'll guess they're both cockerels.
#1 comb looks more pink (well, it's a faintly-pinkish-yellow, instead of a bright yellow)
#2 comb looks bigger (but not by much. It might be my imagination, or the angle of the photo)

 

[ColtHandorf]

Definitely need updated pictures to help you sex them. I do agree that one or two of the BCM are cockerels.

 

[LateBirdFarms]

A few of these were shared around as there were a few more cockerels than I could handle, so I don't have as many pictures to share as I had originally hoped and I can't seem to load pics without a fight off my phone but I'll try my best! I'll try to upload them to my home computer and see if I have more luck there, but heres an updated list of who turned out to be who!

Out of the BCMs Penny was the pullet, and a sassy one at that with the classic gorgeous copper and black colouring.

Out of my olive eggers, or as they were sold (sight unseen porch pick up covid chicks ), Trinket turned out to be a gorgeous cockerel with a fantastically docile temperament. Shockingly though, Fizgig turned out to be a mostly black pullet, with only a few minor barring stripes on her wings, so I don't know what the heck happened in that gene pool, with that head spot I expected some serious barring like Trinket ended up with. I did get an extra two olive egger chicks from the same porch pick up individual when I realized the sex of the BCMs and ended up with another copper headed pullet which I rehomed and a black pullet (at least to all outward appearances) which I kept who at first appeared to have barred wings, with an indistinct small very faint head spot but shockingly grew up entirely black with two white wing tips and now at 11 weeks no wattle and very itty bitty pea comb with what's only beginning to show a second and third line of peas if you really squint. Which you can't squint at without a pic! Ugh I just wish technology wouldn't laugh at me quite so often!

Both SLW were cockerels, mean ones at that, so they went up the street to a lady looking to breed her own meat birds.

My isbar appears to be a pullet... I'm told once your really familiar with the breed you can begin to tell at hatch which are female and male, but I can't claim that talent! Shes a pretty slate blue with a head and neck just a touch darker and only the faintest sign of wattles and comb, so I'm pretty hopeful.

Out of my Hamburg silkies, I think I got a lucky bunch of pullets, but they could indeed be fooling me! They truly are beautiful little things that absolutely adore people and I know I have at least a few really good pictures of them, so it's kind of frustrating not be be able to load them One of them was a failure to thrive for the first month, and didn't grow a single feather from the last picture until 5 weeks when it exploded into catching up with the other two in size. That one in particular is the one I'm worried might be fooling me, having been coddled mercilessly until it caught up in growth.. I might be love blind to any signs, which the only one that one displays so far is its tail is a bit straighter out instead of curled downward.

The pics suddenly decided to work with me! But not my new ones, and only some, but these are the silkie hamburg cross, no silkie gene I can see except feathered feet and less comb?



A few weeks old, but I'll see if I can edit in any more

 

[NatJ]

these are the silkie hamburg cross, no silkie gene I can see except feathered feet and less comb?

The gene for silkie feathers is recessive--so you won't see it in this cross. If you cross one of these to a silkie, you will get about half silkie feathers.

Extra toes and dark skin are fairly common in silkie-crosses, but I'm not seeing them in your photos, so maybe your chicks didn't get them.

Those are cute chicks. I really like the patterning in the feathers!
I'm guessing the Hamburg was Silver Spangled, but what color was the silkie parent?

 

[LateBirdFarms]

The gene for silkie feathers is recessive--so you won't see it in this cross. If you cross one of these to a silkie, you will get about half silkie feathers.

Extra toes and dark skin are fairly common in silkie-crosses, but I'm not seeing them in your photos, so maybe your chicks didn't get them.

Those are cute chicks. I really like the patterning in the feathers!
I'm guessing the Hamburg was Silver Spangled, but what color was the silkie parent?

Mama was a black silkie, the roo was indeed a silver spangled! I absolutely adore these little ones, and in my latest batch of chicks from the fantastic lady who owned the parents I got an adorable chick that's a pale cream where the other three crosses have the true black on on their head and tail base out of a beautiful buff bantam cochin hen and the same spangled roo and I've realized how utterly in love with the spangled pattern I am! I've never owned a Hamburg since I've read they can be quite flighty and the father himself is very standoffish (but very polite!), so I don't know if I owe their superb docile nature to the excessive amount of handling they've grown up with or the super calm traits each mothers genes brings to the table or a perfect combo of the two - but the result so far is awesomely attractive birds that love to lapsit and follow me around while I do my chores !