Golden Cuckoo Maran chicks

[RaeNS]

I'm in need of some help sexing my Golden Cuckoo Maran chicks. They are two days old now. Hatched 1/19 one straggler 1/20 not pictured she is pretty obvious and still in the incubator at the moment (I didn't want the others stomping all over her she was pretty weak coming out of her egg)

I'm pretty confident 1 and 3 are female and 2 and 7 are males. It's 4 5 and 6 that are more questionable.

 

[JedJackson]

These look so different from other chicks I've seen of this variety. Much lighter and more brown. Are those white patches on the back of their necks part of the head spots? It's so hard to tell. I think your guesses so far are correct, but the other three may just take more time to tell. Hopefully some folks with more experience will see this thread.

 

[RaeNS]

These look so different from other chicks I've seen of this variety. Much lighter and more brown. Are those white patches on the back of their necks part of the head spots? It's so hard to tell. I think your guesses so far are correct, but the other three may just take more time to tell. Hopefully some folks with more experience will see this thread.

Yes they do, and the only one that has a lighter base is number 2. Its faint and the camera doesn't pick it up, but it is noticeable in person. The white patches don't connect to the neck on anyone else even number 7 has the faintest ring of their base color before the neck patch.

 

[JedJackson]

1 and 3 have darker colored bodies, so if they are the pullets I'm guessing 4 is another pullet since its body is also darker, and then 5 and 6 would be cockerels. That's one way to read these chicks but I am not sure that it's accurate.

Unless you get lucky and a breeder shows up to help out, I think it's just going to take more time. When they feather out, males will be lighter in overall color, having wider white bars than females will have, due to the males carrying two copies of the barring gene rather than the one copy females will have. I sure hope you get lots of pullets, assuming that's what you want. Keep us updated.

 

[RaeNS]

1 and 3 have darker colored bodies, so if they are the pullets I'm guessing 4 is another pullet since its body is also darker, and then 5 and 6 would be cockerels. That's one way to read these chicks but I am not sure that it's accurate.

Unless you get lucky and a breeder shows up to help out, I think it's just going to take more time. When they feather out, males will be lighter in overall color, having wider white bars than females will have, due to the males carrying two copies of the barring gene rather than the one copy females will have. I sure hope you get lots of pullets, assuming that's what you want. Keep us updated.

Yep, I'll update as I can as they grow. I originally wanted to sell some chicks because I wasn't planning on keeping all, but my husband wants to keep them all until we can see their personalities more. We want to keep a Rooster or two to along with any girls to integrate with our older girls (and replace our Bantam Rooster who is a menace to anyone but me)

 

[RaeNS]

2 weeks old now, and I'm fairly certain that all the ones that were in question are males. I'm seeing the beginning of comb growth on most and their splotchy color feels like a giveaway. That would put me at 3 females and 5 male for the Golden Cuckoo Marans. Out of the 3 females one really runty (failure to thrive?) She had the most difficult hatch as she pipped and zipped in the wrong end and took so much longer to recover from hatching. She is eating and drinking so I'm just going to let her be with her hatchmates. A second girls is also small but she is a full 24 hours behind everyone else, but that doesn't stop her any.

I'll update with pictures again around 7-8 weeks when they go out to my growout coop. I added some pictures but sorry about the quality my phone camera isn't a fan of the lighting in the garage where we are keeping them now. And it's the best I can get with them zooming all over. You may also peep the Black Copper Marans, Ameraucanas/Easter Egger they hatched with.