Four week old Australorp chicks

[rebekah238]

Hi Everyone

This is our first time hatching chickens and we are wanting to know any tips for being able to sex the chicks. The photos below are of the 9 chicks we have and we have no idea what they are. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Pullets or Roos???


Pullets or Roos???


Pullet or Roo??

Thanks so much

 

[iwiw60]

Absolutely adorable! I have Black Australorps and I just love them....however, it is way too soon to even venture a guess at this age. Please re-post pics at 8-12 weeks and we'll give it a go.

In the meantime, enjoy your new flock...too cute!!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Counting left to right, top to bottom- photo 4, 6 and 8 are the cockerel contenders to me based solely on comb size and hint of color.

How to determine, guess sex right from the hatch is to look at the leg size of the chicks. The largest legs likely contenders to be male. Nice females will surprise you with good leg size too but still a good indicator.

As the birds grow and start to feather in (most breeds are able to be feather sexed) the females wings will fill in much faster than the males. You can find photos of primary and secondary feathers and search in this forum or online on specifics of feather sexing or just go with visual of these birds have all there wing feathers before these birds- if your birds are feather sexable then females have wings first. Australorps are feather sexable but as these are Blue variety it's unkown what breed was used to introduce the blue gene.

Then your looking at red color in the comb. With most breeds the males start to gain color in the comb around 5 weeks. Pale orange and such is not the color. You'll see definite pink that will brighten to red in males. Females do not get that color until point of lay.

Pea and walnut combed birds are tough and Wyandotte females tend to have color in comb early. But putting every visual clue together will usually guaranty accuracy of sex earlier than waiting for a crow or side saddles to grow.

 

[rebekah238]

Thanks so much for the information We have received a lot of mixed information about when and how to sex them so your tips are great. Will post again in another month or so. We have a couple of blue bantam Australorps but we got them as pullets so this is our first go at incubating and hatching our own little group. We have become chookaholics

 

[BantamLover21]

It is a little young to tell for sure. However, only the chick on the lower right is looking like a cockerel to me.

 

[Wyandottes7]

I think that it's a little too young to tell gender right now. Quite a few of them have a rather large amount of comb and wattle for the age, though it isn't very red.