Difference in comb colors?

[Joecool1994]

Hey guys, a friend came over the other day and was going through telling us which ones are females and which ones are males by flipping them on their back in her hand and the ones that pulled up and flapped a little she said were our roosters and the ones that just kind of kept their head down were going to be the hens. Well... she said 5 of the 6 we have are going to be roosters so I am hoping that the theory she has was wrong as we bought them as pullets at our local store and the odds of 5 of them being roos wouldn't seem likely to me.

The question I had was about the color of their combs, I was wondering if there would be any difference between the hens and the roos with about 3 weeks of growth? 3 of our chickens are SLWs and they are about 3 weeks old, when I went out their last night to give them fresh water and snacks I noticed that only one of the SLWs combs was a red color with a slight pink while the other 2 were still a yellow with a slight pink. I'm trying every day to notice a difference between both my BOs and SLWs and the BOs are tricky to tell a difference in besides that one of them is really brave to stick clear in the air and turn it's head towards us.

I can get pictures of them if that would make it easier at all.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks a ton guys!

 

[debid]

My brave chicks have all been pullets! And the back-flipping thing is about as accurate as any of the other old wives' tales... OTOH, early reddening of the comb IS a cockerel sign. Females can show a bit of pink around six weeks but if you have deepening color at three weeks, I'd expect it's a cockerel.

 

[Joecool1994]

My brave chicks have all been pullets! And the back-flipping thing is about as accurate as any of the other old wives' tales... OTOH, early reddening of the comb IS a cockerel sign. Females can show a bit of pink around six weeks but if you have deepening color at three weeks, I'd expect it's a cockerel.

Oh so because it's brave doesn't mean that it's a cockerel? Ack, I was really hoping it wouldn't be accurate and I don't know which one was the one she said was going to be a hen! I would just hate to have to keep restarting until I got 6-8 pullets/hens. Ok that's a plus that I know which one is probably a cockerel, does that mean the other two are pullets or do they still have a chance at being a cockerel? One of the SLWs is rather small compared to the other two and doesn't do anything with the other hens besides when they sleep around each other. Even when I bring snacks, such as watermelon as so far it's their favorite, she doesn't go jumping up to get some, she stays away. Thanks much Debid for the help!

 

[debid]

Were these hatchery sexed or straight run? If sexed, odds are great that the one is the only whoops. If straight run, I'd expect more boys to show themselves in the coming weeks. Around 8 weeks, it's usually easy to tell which ones are boys because their combs are growing. Single combs are more obvious than rose but you still may see the difference.

 

[Joecool1994]

Were these hatchery sexed or straight run? If sexed, odds are great that the one is the only whoops. If straight run, I'd expect more boys to show themselves in the coming weeks. Around 8 weeks, it's usually easy to tell which ones are boys because their combs are growing. Single combs are more obvious than rose but you still may see the difference.

They said they were sexed, at the time we had no idea and thought they knew how to tell the difference, we paid for them as if they were pullets. Our friend said that we'd have better odds with going with straight runs, cheaper as well. A co-worker told me that she could tell the difference between the combs while they are small to determine the sex, she's going to bring in pictures for me to see on Sunday. I just saw pictures from Jeanna Maries thread where her 11 week old pullet really doesn't have a comb, a small one anywas. Her pullets comb seems the size of all 3 of my BOs and mine are 4 weeks and a few days maybe old.

 

[debid]

Hatcheries hire chicken sexers that yield better than 90% accuracy with vent sexing. Straight run is 50/50. Amateur sexing is probably no better than 50/50 but you might get lucky and find an amateur who had some training with a pro. But, I promise, if it were as simple as flipping them over or looking at immature combs, hatcheries wouldn't bother hiring pros.

 

[Joecool1994]

Hatcheries hire chicken sexers that yield better than 90% accuracy with vent sexing. Straight run is 50/50. Amateur sexing is probably no better than 50/50 but you might get lucky and find an amateur who had some training with a pro. But, I promise, if it were as simple as flipping them over or looking at immature combs, hatcheries wouldn't bother hiring pros.

Yeah that's very true, they could easily do it themselves. We got them from a place called Orchelins, it's like a Tractors Supply. So they probably had no idea what they were doing lol. Here are a few pictures, the buffs were the easiest to get pictures of because they all came up to us. I'm pretty sure they are all feathered out for the most part and are about 4 weeks old maybe a few days older than that.

Hope these pictures are somewhat helpful for the BOs, we zoomed in as much as we could on them to get decent pictures.

 

[Joecool1994]

Oh dang, I was hoping it would actually show the pictures but it just gives links. :/ Is it because I'm new and it doesn't allow pictures or did I do wrong?