Cream Legbars

[lonnyandrinda]

I just hatched some Cream Legbar chicks and I'm having a hard time sexing them. They are purebred from greenhill stock. I'v been told the males will have a white dot on their head and the females will have a dorsal stipe from their head and all the way down their back (chipmunk stripes). Problem is I have some that have a small hint of light color on their heads and a dark dorsal stipe from their head all they way down their back. Then I have some that don't have white on their heads but also don't have a strong dorsal stripe. Any suggestions? I hatched them once before and it was pretty clear who was a roo and who was a hen. Is that not always the case?

Not familiar with Greenhill, are you sure they are pure Cream Legbars? As ChicKat said go ahead and post some pictures and we will try to help. The well-defined stripe is MUCH more of an indicator than the white spot for girls, as some girls do have a small headspot. Look through the photos in this thread there are lots of chick examples.

 

[nittanyxi]

Here are some pics. They are from Greenfire stock

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Well all US birds are from Greenfire Farms stock LOL. Are your birds straight from GFF though? I would guess not, those are not very well marked... I see two definite girls in the bunch, they have dark back stripes. A third one top right corner is darker and I would guess female as well. The rest? The ones with definite head spots are boys. I would guess the ambiguous ones are girls but I would NOT breed from them, whatever they turn out to be. Mark them with zip ties or whatever. If you breed from them you may lose the autosexing trait.

 

[nittanyxi]

Here are some better pics. The other one was taken before they were 24hrs old and all fluffed up

 

[lonnyandrinda]

nittanyxi here are some of my chicks, there is a brown girl, a gray girl, a brownish boy and two grayish boys. The white is a white sport female.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Your two pictures in the last post aren't showing up.

ETA: Oh well if they weren't dry yet, that makes a huge difference. Once you get your pictures fixed I'll check back and look again.

 

[HaplessRunner]

If you take your cursor over the spot where the picture is supposed to be and click on it a picture does show.

 

[nittanyxi]

 

[nittanyxi]

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Much better pictures, thanks. I take back what I said about ambiguous markings. I only see one chick that I'm not sure of now. When the down is still wet sometimes it's hard to tell.

Counting heads as they appear from left to right I see girl, boy, girl, boy, girl and two boys last whose heads are pretty even.

In this one counting heads from top to bottom I see boy, boy, boy, boy, and at the bottom of the picture girl girl girl.

So both photos add up to 3 girls and 4 boys. Congratulations! Everything make sense now?