Blue Sapphire Chicks - Oddball mystery gender chick

[M2L2]

(My original thread was accidentally deleted by the mods, so reposted )

We’ve had a chick shortage up here in the PNW, and saw our local farm store had sex linked Blue Sapphire chicks in stock! We raced down and picked up 6 before they sold out! Age is approx a few days old.

Our only concern is one of the “pullet” chicks have different colored markings on the neck and face. We did some research but we saw the cockerels should have a white dot on the top of the head, but haven’t been able to find anything on face and neck.

We know they should be sex linked, but we are a little worried as we are unable to have roo’s in our zoning

Wondering if anyone had any idea on if we got a cockerel, or another breed by mistake?

(Attached after the first 3 pics of the questionable blue sapphire chick, are 3 pics of a “normal” looking blue sapphire pullet we have, that resembles what we would expect.)

 

[M2L2]

And I want to add an interesting comment from some very kind person on another site regarding the chick in question:

“Okay. I did some looking around online. You may want to go ahead and find out which hatchery your local farm store gets it's chicks from. It would make things easier for you later!

Blue Sapphire, Sapphire Blue, and any other combination of the words Blue, Sapphire, and Gem as refers to chickens all refer to the same thing - a hybrid between Barred Rock and a Blue Plymouth chicken. Because the bird is a hybrid, and there could be any number of other genes involved, there is some natural variation in the color of the adult feathers and the down of the chicks. In all cases, the white spot is VERY obvious, so you don't have to worry about that.

Your odd chick out is a pullet. She'll have a different color of feathers and maybe different patterning, but she's still a Sapphire Blue (or whatever you want to call her). As long as the chicks stay healthy and happy, you should have lots of wonderful eggs in 4 to 6 months!

Congratulations, OP! It's a girl!”


I’ll be sure to update once we confirm what the mystery chick is, for anyone else with similar questions in the future!

 

[JedJackson]

I think it is just variation in color, which happens a lot with hybrids like gems. The head spot is the main thing to look at with sex links that involve barring, and there is none, so that means it should be a pullet.

 

[M2L2]

Just over 2 weeks old today, and I believe I’m seeing barring on the feathers…See the above photos for what it looked like as a chick, with no head spot, but the behavior we are seeing (already much more aggressive in the brooder, immediately charging towards our hands, etc) and the barring makes me wonder if perhaps we do have a cockerel?

Or perhaps we need to accept the advice we’ve gotten from other people who likely know more than us that it’s a “she.”

 

[M2L2]

Final update - We decided (and honestly wondered why we hadn’t done this already) to email the hatchery, and they got back to us super quick (Jenks Hatchery) and confirmed it’s a pullet!