Help sexing a sassy barred rock

[bigbarntheory]

Who wants to weigh in on whether or not Mrs Wolowitz is really a Mrs? She's very brave and bossy but doesn't jump at the others with her feet like my slw cockerel does. She's 3.5 weeks old.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Six or seven weeks. That is the ideal time to know. The cockerels will sprout red combs and wattles, while the pullets will only show yellow.

Here's some hatchery quality birds from years ago and some true bred birds we now have.

 

[CackleSpackle]

From what I can see in the pictures, my vote is for pullet. Like Fred said, you'll be able to tell for sure at about 7 weeks old.

 

[stefan333]

I agree 7 weeks you can easily tell on BRs. I can tell pretty easily when they're smaller based on light or dark coloring, but only if I have a batch of brothers and sisters to compare them to. Usually the females are darker and males are lighter. I have two BRs that I was for sure were males, because of the lighter coloring, but since I had no brothers or sisters to compare to I ended up being wrong. Each breeder/hatchery has variations that can make it difficult to tell at young ages. And I believe some are not 100% pure. I have a BR that has darker colored legs and a greenish sheen to her feathers, but other than that looks like a BR and lays BR colored eggs. Also, I have found that with BRs behavior is no indication of male/female, because the females can be just as brave and bossy, and I've had some amazingly sweet roosters. The best indicator is to wait til they're about 7 weeks, and the males will have good sized combs. All my females didn't show bigger combs until they're close to laying. Fred those BRs in the first pic are absolutely beautiful!

 

[lauraschickens]

I love the name! Big Bang fan myself.