Help sexing 56 Melanistic Mutant Pheasant chicks? anyone?

[007Sean]

Does this look like a male/female pair of pheasants? I'm guessing the top head (in the head photo) is the female and the male is on the bottom. In the 2nd picture, the one I think is the female is feathering in faster and has the iridescent and brown feathers coming in. They are around 8 weeks old.

Does this look like a male/female pair of pheasants? I'm guessing the top head (in the head photo) is the female and the male is on the bottom. In the 2nd picture, the one I think is the female is feathering in faster and has the iridescent and brown feathers coming in. They are around 8 weeks old.

Although, this pic shows that in all likelyhood, they are male and female, I 've had some Black melanisitic hens that had a very small eye patch, a very small wattle, under the hens eye. It was about the size of a pinto bean. I've only had this occur in the Black melanisitic's and not in the Green melanistic's. It was as if they were hermaphroditic. They acted like males sometimes. Also, as to sexing by the feather color, in earlier posts, you can....a female chick will have a cresent shaped pattern of white feathering under it's neck and very little white feathering at all. The male chick will have alot of white feathering on it's head, neck, breast and what will become it's primary wing feathers will be white. With each progressive molt, these feathers will change color becoming it's full adult color. This holds true for both Black and Green melanistics. I have pictures that I'll post later...im at work right now.

 

[chickenguy222]

Here are the parents of the birds. They had older babies and the chicks which I got. All the older ones had identical white markings on the neck like mine do.

 

[007Sean]

Ok, here are some pics of my Black and Green melanistics. The first pic is a day old female Green melanistic chick. The 10th pic is of a day old male Green melanistic chick. The 11th is of another day old female Green melanistic chick. The 3rd pic is of a male Green melanistic, showing the white primary feathers, which will change with iy's next molt. I'll show pics of the Black melanistic hens with the small wattles, they don't show up real well in the pics, when they were excited or being aggressive, the wattles would engorge with blood, just like males do during breeding season. Other pics are of juvenile Green melanistics and the adult parent birds. The pics didn't post as to the way i uploaded them, so there kinda hap hazard. And one double post of a juvenile male Green melanistic. Sorry about that!

 

[Janiemp55]

I hatch out some of these pheasants this year kept one to see what it would look like grown.when the sun hits the feathers it has blues, and greens so thought male but it doesn't have the red patch around the eyes..some I hatched out weeks after this one are getting their red patch and colors...so I'm stumped to what sex it is any ideas

 

[007Sean]

I hatch out some of these pheasants this year kept one to see what it would look like grown.when the sun hits the feathers it has blues, and greens so thought male but it doesn't have the red patch around the eyes..some I hatched out weeks after this one are getting their red patch and colors...so I'm stumped to what sex it is any ideas

Do you have pictures? It would help in determining what you have.
I hatched out 46 Green melanistics this past season. The first couple of hatches turned out to have bred true...last hatch I set I got mutts. There pretty but instead of green, they are green, blue and purple. They have yellow iris's also and not the normal ringnecked color eyes. Also, have a pencil thin ring around their necks. Here's some pics. The last photo is the male in the first pic, when still a juvenile.

 

[Janiemp55]

After seeing yours mine must be female..when sunlight hits her feathers they shine as blue and green as my peacock on the ends...peacocks no where near each other

This is my second year with pheasant and didn't have any look like this last year...

 

[007Sean]

Yep, there definitely hens.

 

[Janiemp55]

Ok so you talked about green and black ones..would she be a black..even though when sun hits her feathers she has a lot of color..and why didn't I see any my first year from eggs I hatched. Just this year..if bred back with my ringneck male any idea what she would produce..

This is my male

 

[007Sean]

Ok so you talked about green and black ones..would she be a black..even though when sun hits her feathers she has a lot of color..and why didn't I see any my first year from eggs I hatched. Just this year..if bred back with my ringneck male any idea what she would produce..

This is my male

Ok so you talked about green and black ones..would she be a black..even though when sun hits her feathers she has a lot of color..and why didn't I see any my first year from eggs I hatched. Just this year..if bred back with my ringneck male any idea what she would produce..

This is my male

Your male definitely has the melanistic gene. The original melanistic gene came from a normal looking ringnecked bird, as a mutation. Without doing DNA testing, it would be nearly impossibe to know what various species of "true pheasants" is present in it's lineage, unless you did the cross breeding of the birds yourself.
My mutts, came from pure green melanistic parent birds...or so I thought! but I got both green and the mutts.
The Green melanistic will be totally green, everywhere and no white ring around it's neck...the Black melanistic will be black everywhere, even the hens. They will have an iridescent purple to the feathers when the sun hits it just right. And like the green, no white ring, either. A green hen looks just like yours look. They may have an iridescent purple or green on the back of the neck (nape). The male green melanistic's feathers will change different shades of green, depending on the light/angle that hits its feathers. My male Green has a dark brown iris as well, not yellow. The Black male also has a dark brown iris.
With all the cross breeding, inbreeding, line breeding that's been done on the common ringnecked pheasant, there's no way of knowing what genes are present in any given bird. Another point of note; Both my green and black hens lay an unusally high percentage of "soft eggs", I think, my opinion is that they are too inbred? None of my other birds I raise/breed lay soft eggs. They are also like chickens in that they lay nearly year round?, the only time they don't is during molt. Infact, mine just finished molting and are laying again.
As far as what you'll get if you breed your male back to the hens, is anybodys guess!

 

[Janiemp55]

Thank you that helps a lot was thinking about using a younger male but think I will use him again next year to see what happens...mine just finished laying eggs...they start in March and lay up to October...I sometimes think they lay 2 eggs a day the way they pile up lol