The most common way to check gender in chicks is vent sexing, and even that is not guaranteed. This is the method used in most hatcheries. However, many do not recommend inexperienced people doing this unless they are taught first hand by an experienced person. It is very easy to injure the chick if an inexperienced person is doing it. Honestly, vent sexing truly is an art. I have tried it before, it is very difficult to do.
Some breeds are bred for being sex linked. Black Sex Links, Red Sex Links, Barred Rocks, And even my golden sebrights are sex linked. Basically this means that the male hatches one color and the female chick hatches another color.
Some other methods of sexing is feather sexing. The chick has to have certain genes in order for this to work.
I have tried holding the chick by its shoulders and watching its legs. This was another way I was told chicks could be sexed. It didn't work for me. I try to avoid these methods because of fear of hurting the chick. I believe that many of these methods are old wives tales.
The easiest way to tell the gender of a chicken is the waiting game. Usually once there is some comb development then you can make some educated guesses. Males will have redder, bigger comb and wattles at an earlier age. Females wattles generally don't get red until closer to laying age (about 16 weeks). Males also grow long pointy feathers around the base of their tail and neck.
Try posting pictures once your chicks are 4 weeks+ in the "What Breed or Gender is this?" section of the forum for some gender guesses.
Good Luck!
