Baby barred Plymouth rocks

[JULIE L CORWIN]

How can you tell a female from a male?

 

[Kiki]

1st it depends on where they came from.
The sex of purebred Barred Plymouth Rocks chicks can be determined on the basis of the size and shape of a light-colored spot on the top of the head. At hatch, males have a large white spot. The spot is much smaller and narrower in females.

 

[featherhead007]

Yah, LOOK AT ME I'm a hen and my daddy loves me

 

[RUNuts]

In my research, males have lighter/yellow feet. Females have darker/brown legs & feet.

There are several topics addressing this. I have no personal experience, yet.

I bought 11 pullets & only one has yellow feet w/ brown legs. Time reveals all.

Best wishes

 

[strangeanimal]

congratz on your new babies ! great breed too !
To what I know you can also do feathersexing but personally I have never done this , I do know that the females usually have longer feathers and tailfeather plus indeed the spot on the head from males should be bigger than the females ( I know from some the females were ' spotless ' ) , good luck !

 

[Egghead_Jr]

There are no absolutes. Sexing chicks is more of an artform with "feeling" rather than cut and dry of the differences in gender. With Barred Plymouth Rock the three ways to tell sex are, as stated: white spot on head and dark wash on front of legs. The other is thickness of legs. Generally males have a larger and splotchy white dot, females are more concentric. This is not an absolute and is subjective so one indicator looked at in conjunction with the others. Dark was front of legs is very pullet but again, it's not an absolute. If a tighter well defined dot and wash on legs then odds are it's a pullet. The last thing looked at is leg size, if you hatched the birds or have straight run chicks the difference is quite noticeable. Cockerels have honking big legs and pullets have thinner legs. But wait, that's not always true either. I've had some fine pullets with honking legs that rivaled the males.

So you look at the three indicators on the bird, if it's clear cut then easy. Many birds can fit the three criteria to a T. It's the 20% or more that don't fit each criteria that take some educated intuition. Blotchy dot but dark wash and thin legs...I'd say pullet. The head dot is the least accurate, works for 70 to 80 percent of birds but can't stand alone. Nor can the other indicators but when all used you'll be over 90% right. Invariably there will be one that keeps you guessing for a week or so.

Good luck.

 

[speckledhen]

Egghead, Jr is correct. There are indicators, however, a small percentage of BR chicks just don't follow the rules very well, LOL. And I've noticed that my heritage line of BRs is a bit more difficult to sex than the original hatchery BRs I had years ago. Right now, I have an almost 7 week old BR chick that I was sure was a pullet, though her coloring was definitely more what folks would say is cockerel-coloring. The comb/wattles are small and barely pinkish while the two known cockerels were obvious for weeks already. So, I may have to rename that one and sell it off if it's a slow maturing male.
My very first hatchery BR hen had cockerel-like traits and fooled a lot of folks on BYC for weeks. So, though there are the indicators that the previous poster mentioned, and they are usually pretty good to go by, taken all together, but sometimes, they will lead you astray.

Most of my heritage line males have some dark wash on the legs, which is normally a pullet trait, for example.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

If you take and post some photos of your birds we can help you identify characteristics on them which is often more helpful than generalities, especially when you are first learning to *read* the signs