Identify Gender pics included

[NickyP]

Hello all this is our first time raising chicks! The first day we came home with 4 baby pullets, 2 little yellow chicks idk what they are, and 2 silver laced wyandottes. I wanted to get 1 rooster so we went back the next day and got 5 strait runs. 3 Rhode Island reds, 1 golden laced Wyandotte and 1 black australorp. They are all about 4 weeks old I believe and im wondering what gender they all really are. If I have more than one rooster I plan on keeping only 1. Any recommendations on that as well would be helpful. Thanks everyone!!

 

[nuthatched]

Can you get Individual pictures of all of them?

 

[NickyP]

Can you get Individual pictures of all of them?

Check out the post now. Just uploaded them for you.

 

[Growley Monster]

Hello all this is our first time raising chicks! The first day we came home with 4 baby pullets, 2 little yellow chicks idk what they are, and 2 silver laced wyandottes. I wanted to get 1 rooster so we went back the next day and got 5 strait runs. 3 Rhode Island reds, 1 golden laced Wyandotte and 1 black australorp. They are all about 4 weeks old I believe and im wondering what gender they all really are. If I have more than one rooster I plan on keeping only 1. Any recommendations on that as well would be helpful. Thanks everyone!!

You should be starting to see comb development, maybe wattles too, any day now, and definitely before another week passes. The first combs to turn red and the most pronounced are likely little boy chikns. It is tougher to compare when you have multiple breeds though, as their development timetable will differ. You can look at the wing quills, too. As a general rule, pullets will have long feather - short feather - long - short etc and the cockerel will have all long feathers. The pullet will have two rows, viewed from the bottom, the cockerel only one row. Little roos will have thicker legs usually, but again, with multiple breeds, comparisons are sketchy at best.

At four weeks, most breeds should look like they are about half grown and tantalyzingly close to a date with a skillet, about pheasant size, but not there yet. It is amazing how much growth they put on between weeks 2 and 4, depending on breed. Mine are 5 weeks old today and in another week I will band them (they are all Brown Leghorns except the freebie Blue Cochin that McMurray added to the 16 BL) and it is difficult to at a glance identify individuals except for a few, like Steve McQueen, the great escape artist, who will most likely end up to be my flock's rooster, and of course little Fuzzbutt, the Cochin. Once banded, the excess roos will be scheduled for harvest or surgery. So, anyway my BL have definite dimorphism in their combs now, and I can sex them pretty good just from that. The BL don't like being caught and handled, and they are not banded/numbered anyway, so I haven't compared all of them by feathers as well as combs.

Anyway, if you can mark or band the ones of same general appearance, you should be able to spot and record which ones are cockerels by their combs if not now, then in another week or two, certainly, as well as by wing feathers.

It is certainly not an exact science, especially with multiple varieties, but if you make a mistake, you will know it soon enough, with no harm done.

<EDIT> As for the possible excess roosters, you really have four options, and I list them in the order that not knowing you, are at a guess, in order of your likely preference.

It can be hard to re-home excess roosters unless they are very docile and friendly, like lap chickens. Everybody has extra roosters, nobody ever has enough layers. City dwellers usually have issues with crowing, and anti-crow collars have a very checkered safety record, and catch a lot of bad press. So, re-homing options are limited. Two roosters will invariably duke it out at some point, and if the loser survives, eventually he will want a re-match. I have seen some really gory fights among the unculled urban feral flocks in New Orleans, where I lived until recently. Sometimes two brother roosters will get along, sometimes not.

You can of course harvest the excess for meat, if you get them before they get tough (and sometimes a little gamy). This is maybe not a desireable control method if you are disinclined to kill them for meat. That's probably the most common method for small scale chicken barons.

Finally, there is caponizing, and again, you might feel strongly against doing this, or maybe not. Your flock, your call. It is important to remember that it is YOUR decision, nobody else's, because there are very loud voices in favor or against. The loudest and most hysterical are the against faction. They have a right to their opinion and you have a right to listen, or ignore, and decide for yourself. But the fact remains that a capon will not be prone to crowing or fighting, and develops into a very nice meat bird or general barnyard character, and sometimes they will even sit a clutch of eggs if mommy doesn't feel like doing it. The negative side is if you are not careful, you will lose the patient. There are threads elsewhere on the board discussing that.

Finally, you could simply do nothing, and let nature take its course. They might not fight, but they probably will. It is in their genes. The loser might run off, or might have another go at dominating the other roo or roos, or might be maimed physically or psychologically and accept his status as the underdog.

There is no humane/inhumane involved here. You are not deliberately causing pain and suffering, whichever course you take, nor are you neglecting them or disregarding them as of no consequence. Your concern is obvious. Even buying only sexed pullets leads to the death of cockerels as often excess ones can't be sold. That's why I bought straight runs. I would rather take responsibility for the decision of who lives and who dies and who simply loses his testicles and lives on for a while. Ultimately, all are exploited, and all will die, one way or the other, under our stewardship. Keep in mind that they have been bred for this for thousands of generations. Ignoring the issue is perhaps the least humane course of action, of all. As humans, we are the apex species and naturally consume, but at the same time we are responsible for making wise and equitable decisions about the fate of our animals, especially the domesticated ones. If you are thinking about it and weighing the decision carefully, and doing what you decide must be done, then you are doing your part.

 

[NickyP]

You should be starting to see comb development, maybe wattles too, any day now, and definitely before another week passes. The first combs to turn red and the most pronounced are likely little boy chikns. It is tougher to compare when you have multiple breeds though, as their development timetable will differ. You can look at the wing quills, too. As a general rule, pullets will have long feather - short feather - long - short etc and the cockerel will have all long feathers. The pullet will have two rows, viewed from the bottom, the cockerel only one row. Little roos will have thicker legs usually, but again, with multiple breeds, comparisons are sketchy at best.

At four weeks, most breeds should look like they are about half grown and tantalyzingly close to a date with a skillet, about pheasant size, but not there yet. It is amazing how much growth they put on between weeks 2 and 4, depending on breed. Mine are 5 weeks old today and in another week I will band them (they are all Brown Leghorns except the freebie Blue Cochin that McMurray added to the 16 BL) and it is difficult to at a glance identify individuals except for a few, like Steve McQueen, the great escape artist, who will most likely end up to be my flock's rooster, and of course little Fuzzbutt, the Cochin. Once banded, the excess roos will be scheduled for harvest or surgery. So, anyway my BL have definite dimorphism in their combs now, and I can sex them pretty good just from that. The BL don't like being caught and handled, and they are not banded/numbered anyway, so I haven't compared all of them by feathers as well as combs.

Anyway, if you can mark or band the ones of same general appearance, you should be able to spot and record which ones are cockerels by their combs if not now, then in another week or two, certainly, as well as by wing feathers.

It is certainly not an exact science, especially with multiple varieties, but if you make a mistake, you will know it soon enough, with no harm done.

<EDIT> As for the possible excess roosters, you really have four options, and I list them in the order that not knowing you, are at a guess, in order of your likely preference.

It can be hard to re-home excess roosters unless they are very docile and friendly, like lap chickens. Everybody has extra roosters, nobody ever has enough layers. City dwellers usually have issues with crowing, and anti-crow collars have a very checkered safety record, and catch a lot of bad press. So, re-homing options are limited. Two roosters will invariably duke it out at some point, and if the loser survives, eventually he will want a re-match. I have seen some really gory fights among the unculled urban feral flocks in New Orleans, where I lived until recently. Sometimes two brother roosters will get along, sometimes not.

You can of course harvest the excess for meat, if you get them before they get tough (and sometimes a little gamy). This is maybe not a desireable control method if you are disinclined to kill them for meat. That's probably the most common method for small scale chicken barons.

Finally, there is caponizing, and again, you might feel strongly against doing this, or maybe not. Your flock, your call. It is important to remember that it is YOUR decision, nobody else's, because there are very loud voices in favor or against. The loudest and most hysterical are the against faction. They have a right to their opinion and you have a right to listen, or ignore, and decide for yourself. But the fact remains that a capon will not be prone to crowing or fighting, and develops into a very nice meat bird or general barnyard character, and sometimes they will even sit a clutch of eggs if mommy doesn't feel like doing it. The negative side is if you are not careful, you will lose the patient. There are threads elsewhere on the board discussing that.

Finally, you could simply do nothing, and let nature take its course. They might not fight, but they probably will. It is in their genes. The loser might run off, or might have another go at dominating the other roo or roos, or might be maimed physically or psychologically and accept his status as the underdog.

There is no humane/inhumane involved here. You are not deliberately causing pain and suffering, whichever course you take, nor are you neglecting them or disregarding them as of no consequence. Your concern is obvious. Even buying only sexed pullets leads to the death of cockerels as often excess ones can't be sold. That's why I bought straight runs. I would rather take responsibility for the decision of who lives and who dies and who simply loses his testicles and lives on for a while. Ultimately, all are exploited, and all will die, one way or the other, under our stewardship. Keep in mind that they have been bred for this for thousands of generations. Ignoring the issue is perhaps the least humane course of action, of all. As humans, we are the apex species and naturally consume, but at the same time we are responsible for making wise and equitable decisions about the fate of our animals, especially the domesticated ones. If you are thinking about it and weighing the decision carefully, and doing what you decide must be done, then you are doing your part.

Appreciate that info a lot!! Would you be able to check out the pictures and maybe tell which are roosters or hens?

 

[WingItRanch]

I'm not good at sexing Wyandottes so can't help you there but I believe your Australorp may be a cockerel. Nothing is standing out as male when I look at your RIR.

I believe your two yellow chicks (now white) are Leghorns. Both males and females will have large combs in that breed but the males will redden up early. The pullets won't turn bright red until they get close to Point of Lay.