At 1 Week Old Can You Tail Feather Sex Chicks?

[pvchicken1]

Wondering if at 1 week old you can use chick's tail feathers to sex them. Will this be accurate? Could I feather sex (wings)? The breeds are White Plymouth Rock, Brown Leghorn, Buff Brahma, Lavender Orpington, and a Partridge Cochin. Thanks for the help in advance.

 

[black_cat]

You cannot sex using feathers until they are 12 weeks old, using the saddle feathers.

 

[black_cat]

You cannot sex using feathers until they are 12 weeks old, using the saddle feathers.

*excluding specific crosses

 

[Painted Calls]

You're going to have to wait or sell them as straight run.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Here is some more detailed information if you need it to be convinced.

The following is from a post from 2017 by @tadkerson who is well versed in genetics (basically any post written by them about genetics is golden IMO).

"Feather Sexing Chicks

Color sexing chicks can be a difficult task and is dependent upon the phenotype of the chick. If a chick does not have the correct down color, then you can not color sex the chick. There is a way of using another sex-linked trait to sex chicks based upon the size of the primary and secondary feathers on the wing of a newly hatched chick.

Feather sexing chicks can be accomplished by crossing males that are homozygous for rapid feather growth or carry two rapid feather growth alleles ( k+/k+) with females that are hemizygous or carry only one slow feather growth allele ( K/_W).

The female parent contributes a dominant gene for slow feather growth (K) to all the male offspring while the female offspring will inherit only one rapid feather growth allele ( k+) from the father. This cross produces males that have slow feather growth (K/k+) and females that have rapid feather growth (k+/_W).

You have to examine the feathers on the wings of the newly hatched chick. Wait until the down dries and examine the wing feathers.

The table below contains some of the birds that can be crossed to produce chicks that can be feather sexed.

Any of the males in the table, can be crossed with any of the females in the table to produce offspring that can be feather sexed. If you purchased your birds from a hatchery, check with the hatchery to see if the hatchery feather sexed the birds you purchased. If your stock was feather sexed, then the chickens can not be used for feather sexing crosses."