feathering out fast/sexing?

[chkinut]

Hi! i have 5 BCM babies who are almost 2 weeks old. 3 are just barely starting to get their tail feathers and their wing feathers are out, but look different than the other 2. the other 2 chicks have very nice tail feathers and more feathers coming in in places where the other 3 just don't have any feathers coming in yet. i gave 8 of them (use to have 13) to a friend of mine who lives in the country and hatches chicks all the time. i asked her today what she thought. she said she thinks the ones feathering out quicker are probably roos. well, i always thought the opposite....i thought the pullets feathered out quicker. and even last year i ordered 8 chicks from MPC and they sent a mystery chick (9 chicks total) and the mystery chick was very slow to feather out....of course he was a roo. So i think 3 of mine could be roos, and 2 could be pullets. what do you guys think? (sorry no pics at this time)

 

[gritsar]

My males have always feathered out slower than the females.

 

[gryeyes]

I have noticed that pullet tail feathers appear before those of the little cockerels. The girls get nice looking, cute little tail feathers while the boys still have fluffy tufts on their butts without any real feathered features.

The fancy tail-feathers on roosters are secondary sex characteristics.

 

[chkinut]

thanks guys! that's what i thought....just got a lil' worried today after talking to her....just needed some confirmation. if they turn out to be girls, their names will be Gabby and Abby.

 

[chicknfishn]

thanks guys! that's what i thought....just got a lil' worried today after talking to her....just needed some confirmation. if they turn out to be girls, their names will be Gabby and Abby.

So did you end up with what you thought that you would get? This year I am going to keep track of who I think are the girls and who I think are boys. I too think that the girls get longer wings and tail feathers before the boys do. I just maked about 10, 10 day old chicks that I think are girls. I had about 3 that I am not sure about as I did have some much smaller eggs and also a delayed hatch so some are a day or two older than the others. Those I marked with a band on both legs, my maybes versus my for certain girls. I do remember last year that if I wait too long then it gets hard to tell until a few weeks or a month or so later.