Dominique Thread!

[BigBlueHen53]

@MenelausMontrose -- the first chick is very much male - lots of broad head spot splashing plus no dark streaks on front of legs or toes. Females definitely have a very visible dark streak down the front of both legs and tops of all toes.

Your next chick head shot also appears to have wide male white splashing rather than a tight white head spot that a female would have.

Chick 3 can't tell much by blurred photo of feet. Chicks move so much it's hard to get clear pics of the little buggers.

And Dom chicks are very human-friendly to the point that you can't leave a room without them screaming for you to come back! After a week in the kiddie pool our Doms would no longer stay in it. We took off the bird netting on top of the pool and just let them run around the kitchen. For a little while they jumped back in the pool to sleep but later picked other spots in the kitchen to slumber. They grew so extremely fast too!

Poor camera pics but shows the smaller white head spots and dark feet/toes of females:

5 days old -- notice the much smaller white head spot on females and dark streaks on legs
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Chicks at 1-months-old -- dark front leg streak still visible - head spot disappearing
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Sleepy time in the kitchen Swiffer basket
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Almost 2-months old -- dark leg/toe streaks still visible and black band on beak prominent
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Hope my poor pics helped a little. I'd love to know the gender you identified your chicks as either males or females to see how we did in sexing them?

At this age you can sex these birds by their plumage. They are all females.

 

[Sylvester017]

@MenelausMontrose -- We got our standard-size Doms through our local feed store that ordered them from Privett Hatchery (New Mexico). I think Privett is cheaper than any of our in-state Calif hatcheries so the feed store uses Privett.

All hatcheries to me are the same mass production hatcheries so I prefer ordering chicks from private breeders. But one year we lost birds down to only 2 hens left so in a rush we went to the feed store to order our Doms. Never regretted it. The Doms were great but we have only one left. Since we've switched to bantam Silkies I don't believe we'll add any more birds again of any breed. We're an old retired couple and getting more difficult to move around like our younger days

But I'll say if I ever added more standard-size hens I would be sure they were Doms. Good flockmates, never harassed the Silkies, chased away stray cats, thrive on human companionship, talkative, don't exhaust themselves egg-laying, energetic cuz they aren't a heavy breed, and so much more to love about the breed. From chicks they crave your attention. Other chick breeds have to warm up to humans but Doms are your friend the day they hatch

I'm 80 this year and don't want to keep more birds that may out-live me! Wouldn't be fair to the birds. Looking forward to your pics.

 

[Sylvester017]

@BigBlueHen53 -- obviously you haven't read The American Dominique by Mark Fields!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@BigBlueHen53 -- obviously you haven't read The American Dominique by Mark Fields!

 

[Sylvester017]

@BigBlueHen53 --Apparently different breeds of chicks are sexed in different ways -- Leghorn chicks by their little wings, Doms by the methods we already covered, some Hybrids the males are much lighter colored than females, some only are identified by vent sexing, etc etc. Knowing the breed of chick has a specific way of identifying their gender. And as most breeders will tell us there is always a possibility of error until a chicken either crows or lays an egg before we're certain

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You're right, I have not. But I had a dozen or so, about 50/50 M/F. All the F were very dark and all the M were about 50% lighter due to the extra white barring in the males. If I'm not mistaken, Barred Plymouth Rocks show this extra white barring also? Shrug. That's how I id'd my cockerels anyway. Is this not an accurate method?

 

[Sylvester017]

You're right, I have not. But I had a dozen or so, about 50/50 M/F. All the F were very dark and all the M were about 50% lighter due to the extra white barring in the males. If I'm not mistaken, Barred Plymouth Rocks show this extra white barring also? Shrug. That's how I id'd my cockerels anyway. Is this not an accurate method?

The extra wider white splashing on head and back of neck on Dom male chicks is a good indication it is a male but once in a great while a female has extra white splashing so also using the dark leg/toes method usually confirms female.

Although male and female chicks have dark spots on their top beak, a female's strip/tip will be clearer marked and not scattered. I always id'd my female chicks by all 3 features -- smaller tighter white head spot, darker beak strip, and the confirming feature was dark front legs/toe tops. This always worked for true Doms -- have no idea how this method would work on mixed Dom breeds. And as always a breeder will say there ARE exceptions to every accepted rule,

You probably had an easy job of id'ing Dom males as "lighter" because from above males' white splashing is so wide they just look lighter from the females cuz females have tighter much smaller white skull spot making them look darker than male chicks.

My female Dom chicks barely had a clear white spot but I also used the beaks and legs/toes to add to my final id. Just more white coloring is not enough to make positive id -- might be a good guess but not true confirmation and most breeders need to know up front how many males/females they have at hatch by using all 3 features. A lot of hatcheries just vent sex to be positive -- but not a method that can be used on delicate tiny bantam breeds.

BTW how did Doms work for you? Ours were about 5-1/2 lbs hens with small/med eggs and not every-day egg-laying. We didn't need lots of eggs for two of us, we don't use our birds for meat, plus we wanted friendly non-combative hens and Doms fit our need. Besides Blue Breda, Doms are people-friendly, love to chitter-chatter and talk back and forth with us, good flock temperament, have a lot of energy, and our remaining old Dom thinks she's a lap dog. Because she's older she's not in perfect coloration any more but we love her.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

The extra wider white splashing on head and back of neck on Dom male chicks is a good indication it is a male but once in a great while a female has extra white splashing so also using the dark leg/toes method usually confirms female.

Although male and female chicks have dark spots on their top beak, a female's strip/tip will be clearer marked and not scattered. I always id'd my female chicks by all 3 features -- smaller tighter white head spot, darker beak strip, and the confirming feature was dark front legs/toe tops. This always worked for true Doms -- have no idea how this method would work on mixed Dom breeds. And as always a breeder will say there ARE exceptions to every accepted rule,

You probably had an easy job of id'ing Dom males as "lighter" because from above males' white splashing is so wide they just look lighter from the females cuz females have tighter much smaller white skull spot making them look darker than male chicks.

My female Dom chicks barely had a clear white spot but I also used the beaks and legs/toes to add to my final id. Just more white coloring is not enough to make positive id -- might be a good guess but not true confirmation and most breeders need to know up front how many males/females they have at hatch by using all 3 features. A lot of hatcheries just vent sex to be positive -- but not a method that can be used on delicate tiny bantam breeds.

BTW how did Doms work for you? Ours were about 5-1/2 lbs hens with small/med eggs and not every-day egg-laying. We didn't need lots of eggs for two of us, we don't use our birds for meat, plus we wanted friendly non-combative hens and Doms fit our need. Besides Blue Breda, Doms are people-friendly, love to chitter-chatter and talk back and forth with us, good flock temperament, have a lot of energy, and our remaining old Dom thinks she's a lap dog. Because she's older she's not in perfect coloration any more but we love her.
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I was not talking about id'ing my Doms as chicks but as adults. My first comment in this thread was in response to adult plumage, not chicks. By the time the birds are fully feathered it seems to me one no longer needs to look at subtle cues such as leg stripe, head spot and beak tips; the plumage coloration makes sexing patently obvious. IMO. Anyway, we enjoyed our Doms, and they did fit in well with our other breeds, which included EE and BA as well as I can remember. No drama in our flock, ever, I can only remember one incident of bullying and I think it was an older EE that resented a new group of younger birds moving into the hen house. I could not tell you who is the head hen, ever. Everybody is very chill. At the moment I have one SS that is very impatient with ME at treat time, but she's not bossy in the flock.

 

[Sylvester017]

I was not talking about id'ing my Doms as chicks but as adults. My first comment in this thread was in response to adult plumage, not chicks. By the time the birds are fully feathered it seems to me one no longer needs to look at subtle cues such as leg stripe, head spot and beak tips; the plumage coloration makes sexing patently obvious. IMO. Anyway, we enjoyed our Doms, and they did fit in well with our other breeds, which included EE and BA as well as I can remember. No drama in our flock, ever, I can only remember one incident of bullying and I think it was an older EE that resented a new group of younger birds moving into the hen house. I could not tell you who is the head hen, ever. Everybody is very chill. At the moment I have one SS that is very impatient with ME at treat time, but she's not bossy in the flock.

That makes sense that you were speaking of older birds. Yeah, by teenagers it's fairly easy to tell males from females. I was speaking of id'ing new Dom hatches Wish I was younger and in better health so I could get more Doms. Lovely funny good temperament birds that want to be our lap dogs!

 

[Karstcast]

Dunghill fowl means all the above. In the old times they did not buy chicken feed for barnyard birds, rather they scavenged through dung hills (manure of cows, horses) and picked out half digested grain. Thus the term dunghill fowl was not a complement; and it was applied to any other lackluster fowl, like one which would not fight. It’s all the same term and the same meaning of the term. Whew.