Thanks everyone! That's a shame, though it'll live for a bit longer!
Thankyou!
Could you explain this? Thanks!
The dark red patches on the wings is a sex-linked trait in EEs, especially when it's a dark patch just on the shoulders of an otherwise-colored body. This is an almost 100% foolproof way to identify EE cockerels. Females may have red on the wings, but it's part of an overall all-body pattern of color, not patchy like this. In fact, the cockerel pictured is one of the clearest examples of the red shoulders that I've seen.
Here are some EE boys, all ID'd at five weeks old or less by coloring alone. I kept these for slaughter until they were 14 weeks old, so I know I was 100% correct in my sexing. You'll notice that some of them had just a few red feathers coming in at that age, but they were cockerels nonetheless.
Here's a female that has red shoulders, but see how the color is less red and it's part of a more overall pattern on the wing?
Edited to add:
I kept that blue and red EE cockerel above just because he was so pretty. I had to catch him this morning, so I thought you'd be interested to see his adult coloring (he's 18 weeks old this week). See how his wing patches are super red?
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