Can you tell sex by saddle feathers?

rizq

Songster
11 Years
Oct 9, 2008
1,039
11
161
Tennessee
We are relatively new to chickens, though we've worked up quite a collection thus far with almost 60 chickens
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. We were bitten by the chicken bug, and bitten HARD! LOL. Anyway, our neighbor tells us that once their true feathers come in you can tell the hens by their rounded saddle feathers as opposed to the roosters pointy saddle feathers (which he calls pin feathers). Looking at our adult chickens, it appears that this seems to be the case, though with some patterns the feather shape is difficult to see (few of our chickens, at this point, enjoy being handled).

Well, the majority of our chickens are light brahmas. We have 26 of them (hatchery chickens) that are about 4-5 months old and I am afraid only 2 are hens (they were supposed to be straight run). We didn't get them directly from the hatchery, but got them the day they arrived (at 1 day old) through a guy who bulk orders and sells the extra

Two of these chickens have almost no comb/wattles and have rounded saddle feathers. About 4 of the chickens have quite red, very pronounced comb/wattles, the rest are somewhere in between, all these chickens have pointy saddle feathers.

Please tell me that the 2 with rounded feathers and no comb/wattles are just more immature and I don't have 24 roosters to my 2 hens!
 
I took the pictures, but my internet is having signal issues and is being so slow I can't get them to load into freewebs. I am working on them though
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I'll try that. Maybe it will work better with my current internet issues. I have a love/hate relationship with my nationwide internet. It's awesome as long as the signal is good. Not so great at home. But, it is better than nothing.

Going to try photobucket.
 
Well, over an hour later I finally have the pics uploaded. I also figured out what was wrong with my internet and fixed it. If I had figured that out sooner it probably would have taken less than 10 minutes
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Here is a pic of what I think is a roo with one I'm not so sure about behind him
roowithinbetweeninback.jpg


Here is a closer pic of a probably roos head
rooheadclose.jpg


Here is a pic of his feathers. This is basically what all the saddle feathers look like (except the 2), but some aren't quite as pronounced and some are white. I couldn't get a good pic of the less pronounced, but still pointy feathering as it was getting too dark and they wouldn't stand still
pointyagain.jpg


Here is one of the two I am sure is a pullet, the other is pretty much identical
pulletfront.jpg


Here is a pic of her feathers
roundedsaddlefeathers-1.jpg


Here is one I am not sure about
inbetweenhead.jpg


Here is a close up
inbetweenheadclose.jpg


Here is a small group of them
group1.jpg


The other pics I took didn't turn out. If I need to get different pics, I can take them tomorrow. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks
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Hi Becki!
The chicken in the center of pic #1 is a roo.
The chicken in pic #4 looks like a hen.
The chicken in the center of pic #8 (on the log) is the roo and the one behind and to the right of the pic looks to be a roo also.
The chicken in the forefront/lower part of pic #8 I'm not sure about; but I'm leaning towards roo. Could be a hen that's about ready to start laying, can't tell for sure about those saddle feathers.
 
They are all pointy, except the two. Some aren't as pointy as the definite roos though, but maybe they are just maturing more slowly. The ones I'm pretty sure are hens have very round feathers, no mistaking them for pointy!

Uhg. Next time I'll get my chicks straight from the hatchery. I'll bet he didn't get straight run at all and the hens we did get were just mis-sexed
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. My grandpa has about 20 from the same bunch and only 1 or 2 of them look like definite hens as well.

I guess we need to buy another freezer, lol. At least I'll have plenty of room for some darks and buffs, but I'll have to order more lights as well. I'm going to get sexed pullets ... no more straight run for me!
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Of course the could be hen ready to lay gives me a little hope.

Thanks for your answer gritsar, even if it isn't exactly what I wanted to hear
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