Can A Chick be Color Coded

[Rhode island Rooster]

Hi everyone. I was thinking of buying some Chicks. Specifically Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Red Sexlinks. I was wondering if the rooster chicks are different colors then the female chicks with these breeds? All help is appreciated!

 

[Pyxis]

Yes, red sex link males and females are different colors as chicks - that's why they're called sex links The other two breeds look the same as chicks.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Hi everyone. I was thinking of buying some Chicks. Specifically Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Red Sexlinks. I was wondering if the rooster chicks are different colors then the female chicks with these breeds? All help is appreciated!

Red sex links are so named because the color is linked to the gender of thee bird....making it possible to sex on sight from hatch.
The other breeds listed do not have this characteristic and are only sexable at hatch by inspection of their sex organs by an experiernced sexer.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Buff Orpingtons are not a different color as peeps.

Rhode Island Reds can supposedly be sexed by a "white spot" males have on their wing web fluff when they hatch. (that's sort of the upper arm--see the two red spots on the picture below?) But I have no idea how accurate that is, and I can't find any pictures.

Barred Rocks have head spots when they hatch. Males have messier head spots, females have neater ones. That's about 80% accurate, I think?

Red Sexlinks. Yep. Males are white, females are red.

Don't listen to anything anyone tells you about feather-sexing peeps unless they tell you that only specific breeds and certain crosses can be sexed this way. They've never done any research to realise that it doesn't work.

 

[Kessel23]

Hi everyone. I was thinking of buying some Chicks. Specifically Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Red Sexlinks. I was wondering if the rooster chicks are different colors then the female chicks with these breeds? All help is appreciated!

Some breeds of chicken are color coded, sex links are different colored depending on gender. RIR are not different colors but I can help you sex them at 2 weeks of age. Male RIRs chicks at two weeks will have wing feathers that barely reach their rear and a small nub of tail feathers. Female RIRs at two weeks will have long wing feathers reaching their tails, their tails will be almost 3 times the length of a male, they will have feathers coming in on the chest and shoulders.

I have not tested this with many other breeds but I can tell you it works 100% with RIR and sometimes Black Australorps, I can tell you it does not work at all with Red stars or Leghorns. I'm not sure if this applies to Orpingtons or Barred Rocks. I noticed this characteristic after owning over 100 RIR over the past 8 years. I have not owned many BAs but the ones that I have owned do follow this rule.

I found out feather sexing tricks with a few breeds because I always get a lot of hens and a few roos, the roos were the misfits and I would notice differences between them and the hens. I get my RIR from Murray Mcmurray and i'm not sure if this is a trait only held by their breeding stock or if it applies to all RIR. This trick also worked for RIR I hatched but they were eggs from the Murray chickens. I have never had this not work with a Black Australorp but i have not owned enough of them to say it works 100%

Do not try this trick with other breeds of chickens unless someone here tells you it worked for them often. I have had a lot of RIRs over the years ad this trick always works for me. The majority of RIR I had were from McMurray, the others I hatched, the trick worked for hatched birds too. You can sex Brown leghorns at 3-4 weeks by the color of their chest, males have black feathers and females stay brown.

Edit: By Red stars I mean just a red sex link, McMurray has than labeled as Red Star, i'm not sure it that is just a nickname or an actual name, I have heard people call them Red Sex link, Red Star, and Red Hybrid, do they have an actual name or do they just have a bunch of nicknames? Well anyways this trick does not work with the red sex link, that does not really matter though... I mean it might if you were blind.

 

[Rhode island Rooster]

Ok thank you everybody this will help me so much!