gold ring test

[spicy6]

Hello,
I have a 4 week old chick that I think is a rooster. They seem to be feathering later and his/her feet are larger than the others.
I heard about this thing called the gold ring test. I tried it with any old ring (that was not gold) and it went back and forth.
I tried it on another aggressive chick that was showing no signs of rooster besides aggressiveness and it said they were a girl.
how reliable is the gold ring test? will it work with any plain ring?
pics of chick that ring test said was rooster.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi, hope you are enjoying BYC!

Well that test has a 50/50 chance of being right.

But that's a pullet. In barred breeds the males get a double dose of the barring gene from their mums... making their white stripes appear twice as wide as the dark ones.

The females will have wider dark stripes.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Pretty sure this ring test is an old wives tale... sounds just like the one where you dangle a ring over a pregnant woman's belly to figure out the gender of the baby.

 

[spicy6]

thank you so much. I have another chick that has their white strips already. (also 4 weeks old). do you think that the chick that I thought was a rooster could have problems because she has not white strips? or is she just a different color?

by the way, I'm 11 and these are my first batch up chickens that I own on my own.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Depending on their breed the girls and boys could feather in differently or not. Once the chicks get older you can post their photos on the What Breed Or Gender forum https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/what-breed-or-gender-is-this.15/