Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[dstokely]

dstokely, I also think it may be a cockrel. Hope to hear if it crows or lays an egg! Mary

Your avitar is a beautiful black bird. I am envious at this point!

 

[MrsBachbach]

My test was done when they were a wk old.  I had 9 with tails(females) and 6 with no tails.  I have this documented in a post back in April, and once I get them all identified, I will repost with current pictures.  My test at that time showed three blue, one black, one lavender and one yellow.  My juvenile birds show three blue cockerels, one lavender cockerel, and a blue wheaten cockerel.  All that is missing is the black one.  The black one that I examined today has a lot of what I will call feather shafts coming in with just a wisp of a feather showing. More on the saddle and some on the hackle. So, I am still holding out hope.
I read about this method on the Easter Egger Sexting Tip Forum,  I believe, so I thought I would test it.  Even with the five documented, I think that is still good results....or I am very lucky, or intuitive one.  Maybe in about a month, I can confirm.  It would be more convincing if I had put bands on them.  I tried with small colored rubber bands, but I would not make them really tight as I did not want their little legs to fall off like puppy dog tails....the rubber bands fell off so there went my factual experiment.

That sounds promising. I wondered about that one because the tail also looked cockeral like, but you said it was a hen in your post so I thought it was over a year old.

When checking for tails, I have noticed that when they are that young, that some tails appear more prominant than others. So, are the less prominant ones considered the males? Obviously, timing would be very important here, because they all start showing tails at some point. I tried to look through my pictures but I didn't focus on tails much when taking photos, although I did find one I took a picture of and indeed it didn't have a tail and did end up male.

Try colored zip ties on your chicks. They come in different sizes and colors, so the small ones work good for chicks. Just black and white would work for sexiing purposes. You just have to leave them loose enough so they have room to grow, yet not so loose that it will slip off their leg. That back toe of theirs is what I use as my guide when I put them on. I close them just enough so it doesn't slip past the back toe. Now they do have to checked weekly to see if they are ready to be removed and replaced because chicks do grow and you don't want them to get too tight that removal will be difficult. I usually just use nail polish on the chicks for the first week or so, since the legs are so tiny. I have even used trash bag ties to identify chicks in the past. Once again, you have to monitor their growth.

 

[Folly's place]

Thanks for the nice comment about my Avatar. I think he's good looking too! Mary

 

[JackieandChicks]

Okay, I can't tell if I have a lavender pullet with poor feather quality or a later-blooming roo. "She's" much smaller than my confirmed lavender roo, but has what looks like saddle feathers, but when I look closely at them, they are more rounded than the roo. Single row on pea comb, different tail set, no crowing, same age. John Blehm stock. They are about 6 months old now.

Here "she" is....



Here he is...no tail yet, larger, crowing. Three rows on his pea comb.



Thank you!!!!

 

[pips&peeps]

It's a cockerel.

 

[speckledhen]

Full blown male, no question. That big old fringe of saddle feathers is right out there.

 

[JackieandChicks]

Okay, seems like all the chicks my friend got from him are males. She's not having good luck with that! I'll sell the second one without tail feathers - I'm keeping the black from him, and one lavender. Don't need two! Thanks!

 

[Going Quackers]

Can one of you(or several lol) give me some input on these chicks i bought them as eggs and pure but.. some questioning is coming out.. i did put them under an EE hen so if you see her in the background they are NOT her babies by blood lol

Here half of the hatch..






Thank you!

 

[jerryse]

Can one of you(or several lol) give me some input on these chicks i bought them as eggs and pure but.. some questioning is coming out.. i did put them under an EE hen so if you see her in the background they are NOT her babies by blood lol

Here half of the hatch..






Thank you!

Well the first 1 could be silver , 2 is blue , 3 is black . Number 3 is your only pullet . Hard to say at this age if they are pure . What colors did the seller claim to have ? Silvers are not very common but striped chicks are very common in EE .

 

[Going Quackers]

Well the first 1 could be silver , 2 is blue , 3 is black . Number 3 is your only pullet . Hard to say at this age if they are pure . What colors did the seller claim to have ? Silvers are not very common but striped chicks are very common in EE .

Blue, black and splash. Thanks.