Help sexing 12 week old chicks!

[Dgrif5]

We currently have 13 chicks running around our garden (the result of a hidden broody hen we didn't find until it was too late!), and we're having trouble figuring out their genders... some we are pretty sure about, but others are generating more contention, and we're worried we may be inundated with cockerels if our fears are true! Any help with identification would be appreciated. Some are quite difficult to photograph, so i'll update the post as better/more photos become available.

Thanks again for any assistance!

1. - we're pretty sure this is female, and hope to not be proven wrong!

2. - we (sadly) are pretty sure this is a cockerel.

3. - another Cockerel?

4. - Sorry for the poor photos on this one. We hope this one's a hen, as it's a lovely friendly chick.

5. - We're pretty sure its a cockerel, but I'd love to be proven wrong!

6. - We're confident this stubby chick's a Cockerel. It always seems to go off on its own as well.

7. - This is one of our more unusual chickens, as 3 of them don't seem to have formed proper feathers (Silkie blood?). This one looks straight out of the 90's with its frosted tips! We hope it's not a Cockerel, but I'm worried.

8. - We're pretty confident this one's a hen.

9. - This photo was actually taken several weeks ago, as it's particularly camera-shy. Another of the odd-feathered trio, it's a lovely little chicken that we really hope is a hen.

Sadly I don't have good photos of the last 4, only this group shot here containing some of them:

(bottom middle and middle left are two of the last four, and the middle right is a more recent photo of the camera-shy one mentioned earlier)

Apologies for the long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated! If better photos are needed of any already listed, let me know and I'll do my best to oblige.

Thanks again!

 

[Flockandfowl46]

Looks like 8 and 9 are hens and in the bottom pic I see one hen in the very middle

 

[Dgrif5]

Thanks for the reply! I'm guessing that means that you believe the rest are cockerels then? That's a real shame, its lovely seeing the whole group together but we can't deal with too many more cockerels..

 

[snow5164]

I think you are right on with your guesses....

 

[Dgrif5]

Damn, I knew that would be the likely answer, but I had still hoped to be proven wrong Thank you for the reply though! How definite would you say it is? Is there a chance some of them could turn out to be particularly cockerel-ish hens? Number 7 in particular I'd hoped I was wrong about. Not exactly the prettiest chicken at the moment, but is very unusual (in comparison to its siblings), and has a ton of personality.

On a brighter note, i'm glad that the hen guesses seem to be correct! At least one member of the oddly fluffy trio is likely a hen! (as I mentioned in my original post, is that fluffy feathering some odd silkie throwback, or is it just incredibly slow-feathering? Neither of the parents are silkie, though they may carry silkie DNA as I don't know their parentage)

 

[Flockandfowl46]

The one really fluffy one I would really like to see an individual pic of in bottom pic it's hiding

And yes I believe the rest are cockerals sorry hun

 

[Dgrif5]

Yeah, sorry about that! I'll try and get some better pictures tomorrow! (as well as try to get images of the remaining four)

I still can't believe how much variation there is with only the one mother and father! I was expecting much more uniformity to be honest, as the brood the mother came from was much less varied. Though I'll admit I'm no expert on chicken genetics!

 

[Flockandfowl46]

When you have mixed parentage of unknown origin you never know...but definitely looks like there's some silkie in there somewhere

 

[Flockandfowl46]

If you have both parents would love to see photos of them....was wondering about the barred pattern,that's usually dominant
They are all very pretty and unusual

 

[Dgrif5]

Not the best photo, but it's the best that I've got on hand:

The Mother and Father are the two on the top-left (ignore the Bluebell)