How to tell the sex of Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks?

oldhenlikesdogs · Oct 22, 2017

goodlookchooks said:
Okay thanks, I asked about the tail cause my mum read somewhere, that the male's have loss of feathers on the shoulder at 6-8 weeks, and the female's tail is up. I wanted to double check it cause i wasn't to sure. Do you think it may be true?

I don't know, I haven't heard those before, should be interesting to see if she's right.

MidnightMaran · Oct 23, 2017

I just wanted to say, I had two SLW who did not loose feathers on the shoulder, but they did seem short on feathers until they were about 5-6 months old. One of them did not seem to have much of a tail, the other one was only a little better. They were definitely cockrels, as you can see in pic 2. I got them as chicks and picked the 2 whitest ones in coloring as I thought they were the cutest. One of them, I joked, was a rooster from the start. As a chick he was jumping around the brooder, landing on the other chicks, jumping out of the brooder, running around the garage, (we kept them there so we wouldn't have to deal with the peeping, it gets old very quickly) through people' legs, and back into the brooder. The other would hog the heat lamp all day, funny he turned out to be the boss of his brother.

oldhenlikesdogs · Oct 23, 2017

MidnightMaran said:
I just wanted to say, I had two SLW who did not loose feathers on the shoulder, but they did seem short on feathers until they were about 5-6 months old. One of them did not seem to have much of a tail, the other one was only a little better. They were definitely cockrels, as you can see in pic 2. I got them as chicks and picked the 2 whitest ones in coloring as I thought they were the cutest. One of them, I joked, was a rooster from the start. As a chick he was jumping around the brooder, landing on the other chicks, jumping out of the brooder, running around the garage, (we kept them there so we wouldn't have to deal with the peeping, it gets old very quickly) through people' legs, and back into the brooder. The other would hog the heat lamp all day, funny he turned out to be the boss of his brother.View attachment 1167484 View attachment 1167486

Pretty boys. I haven't had a SLW rooster, but have had a gold and a BLR, so it's good to see the SL boys are also muddy across the shoulders at a young age. I do know the pullets have nice lacing around the neck from the start. It does make it easier to sex them once you see the differences.

goodlookchooks · Oct 24, 2017

oldhenlikesdogs said:
Pretty boys. I haven't had a SLW rooster, but have had a gold and a BLR, so it's good to see the SL boys are also muddy across the shoulders at a young age. I do know the pullets have nice lacing around the neck from the start. It does make it easier to sex them once you see the differences.

They look like nice chook. I have 20 SLW hens and 3 roosters. I breed them from eggs, and from Mum's idea that the hen's tail is up, it seemed to be right, but the two chicks out in the paddock have the tail poking up, seem to look more like cockrells.

oldhenlikesdogs · Oct 24, 2017

goodlookchooks said:
They look like nice chook. I have 20 SLW hens and 3 roosters. I breed them from eggs, and from Mum's idea that the hen's tail is up, it seemed to be right, but the two chicks out in the paddock have the tail poking up, seem to look more like cockrells.

It will be interesting to see if that's how it turns out.