Chicks from organic supermarket eggs

[Spear1]

Hi. Thanks for letting me join!
I just recently hatched 4 chicks from organic eggs I bought at the supermarket. This is not my first time keeping chickens but it is my first time hatching. The problem is now determining if I have males or females. I know that's a hard one to answer since the chicks are now only a week old and the commercial hybrids wont breed true. But what should I look for when determining the gender of these sweet babies?

 

[Perris]

hello @Spear1 ! welcome to BYC and congrats on a successful hatch from supermarket eggs - they must have been more than usually fresh . Was there any indication on the carton about the breeds at that organic producer?

 

[featheredplanets]

Best bet is waiting till they’re 6-8 weeks old. By then cockerels should be showing red combs and wattles, pullets should have pale pink combs and wattles.

And welcome to Backyard Chickens

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome! And congratulations! They are very cute, and appear to vary a lot in looks. Yellow legs and white legs?
This will be fun!
You could call the producer, and maybe get information about the breed mixes they have. It's way too soon to guess the sex of these babies; just give it a few more weeks.
Mary

 

[VictoriaTemple]

Wow, I had no idea refrigerated eggs could hatch! Shows how much I know about incubating.

You could try feather-sexing their wingtips. I tried that for the first time on last year’s Marans, and it was accurate.

Just curious, what color were the eggs you bought? My local Giant Foods is carrying “heritage breed” organic eggs now, everything from lighter shades of Marans to light Americana blue. I was puzzling over the white legs. White legs from a dark brown or red egg could indicate Marans in the mix. I understand they are sometimes used for sex-linking.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

I don't know if it's true or not but I've heard that females get tail feathers faster than males. It was 100% accurate with the chicks I recently hatched but I'd have to do it several times to see to make sure.

 

[CindyinSD]

Little boys often have a cockier attitude. There’s also something to do with the feather development but I can’t remember exactly what. The male combs and wattles develop faster. For information on vent sexing, do a YouTube search.

 

[Folly's place]

'Feather sexing' only works if the chicks have been specifically bred to display that trait, otherwise it's totally random. Sussex also have white legs, and white legs are a dominant trait.
The Marans I got from a local breeder here were not sexable by feather growth, BTW.
Mary

 

[VictoriaTemple]

Cool, didn’t know that, thanks! My feather-sexed Marans were a project color that a breeder friend of mine is working on. It was opposite of what I saw on YouTube, but accurate. Actually, I strongly suspect this color (Red Mottled) is sex-linked, my girls had red down and my boy was white. Having only one boy, though, I wouldn’t swear to it. Maybe it was something else they use Marans for. Whatever, chickening leads to a habit of collecting semi-useless data! Some if it might be wrong. Still curious.

 

[CindyinSD]

'Feather sexing' only works if the chicks have been specifically bred to display that trait, otherwise it's totally random. Sussex also have white legs, and white legs are a dominant trait.
The Marans I got from a local breeder here were not sexable by feather growth, BTW.
Mary

What I was referencing was something I once saw about the speed of development of the wing feathers. I haven’t seen it since and I’m not certain whether the girls were supposed to develop faster, or the boys. Methinks it was the girls. Obviously I didn’t take it TOO much to heart or it would have made more of an impression.