3 week old chicks fights and mating rituals!

[Chickbait]

I am curious, I have 12, 3 week old OEG bantams, I cannot determine the sex by looking at them. Last night I saw one attempting to mate with another, I will assume he is a rooster correct? Also there are 3 or 4 of them that rear up and sort of kick one another I am also assuming that these guys are roosters? they all play well, but I only noticed the 3 or 4 doing this special fighting dance.

I would appreciate your input

thank you

 

[momofdrew]

sounds like roos

 

[birdlover]

Now I could be wrong but I think, at 3 weeks, what you are seeing is typical chick behavior and not indicative of gender. I've never ever seen a roo try to mate at 3 weeks! It probably just looked like that's what s/he was doing. And as far as sparring goes, females do it, too. When my crew were around 8 weeks, then I was able to tell which one was my roo and which ones were pullets because he tried to mount them. I wouldn't draw any conclusions just yet! BTW, I LOVE OEGB's! I started with 2 silkies and an oegb and the oegb turned out to be my roo and the silkies turned out to be girls. I was glad he "showed" me they were girls because it's so darn hard to sex silkies!

 

[L*A*G*]

3 weeks! that's very soon to be doing that! idk, u might be mistaken.
i wait and look for the combs to tale male and female apart.

 

[Sock Puppet]

Quote:
today two of my little 2 week old chicks where rearing up and sparring. I thought only roos did that. Im really relieved that the girls do it too.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Agreed. Also, the dominant pullet can mount as a show of dominance.

 

[silkiechicken]

At 3 weeks they are figuring out who is top and who is not. A normal way of play fighting so to say to figure out dominance. You won't be seeing maiting behavior and gender behavior till at least 3 months, more likely 4. By 5-6 months, they will start to act their gender roles.

Right now, they'd be just babies!

 

[SeramaLife]

We have had roosters mate at 6 weeks. They turned out mean. My 6 week old seramas started crowing at 4 weeks.