Is there a way to tell the gender of a chick at age of about 3 days?

[Bella the Chicken Lover]

Hi everyone! My Birthday is coming up soon(June 3) , and I think my parents are going to get me some chicks! My mom has been questioning me like: What do you want for your birthday? Me: chicks!!! Her: If you could have a new breed of chicken, what would it be? I would ask, why do you want to know? She said, no reason, but what? I answered "Ameracauna". Later on in the week, she said "If you had some Ameracauna, and got a rooster, would you be sad to kill it?" I answered, a little. And she almost gave it away, when she said this: If we went to tractor supply, and looked at Ameracauna, would you be able to tell the breed of pullets, so you could just get pullets." I said: I think so. She gave me "Homework" to find out if I could before the start of June(Also, she said that on my birthday, she will have to go to tractor supply to "Get food for the dog", lol.
SO lets cut to the chase(I'm too excited thinking about the possibility of getting more chicks):
Is there a way to tell the gender when really young? Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

 

[BobletFarmBirds]

Hey! Tractor supply employee here
We receive chicks generally sexed. Most of our americaunas come in as pullets, very few straight run. It would be a bit harder to try and judge them there- they’re all just little fluff balls at that stage. Definitely give your local store a call as well! We don’t know what the hatchery is going to be sending us until we pick them up at the post office. Make sure they have those awesome americaunas in! And like all hatchery birds- they will make great egg laying pets, but will not be the same quality of those from dedicated breeders
Also- I just noticed it auto corrected to americauna instead of ameracauna. We do receive both varieties and THEY ARE DIFFERENT!! so watch out for that!!

 

[Bella the Chicken Lover]

Hey! Tractor supply employee here
We receive chicks generally sexed. Most of our americaunas come in as pullets, very few straight run. It would be a bit harder to try and judge them there- they’re all just little fluff balls at that stage. Definitely give your local store a call as well! We don’t know what the hatchery is going to be sending us until we pick them up at the post office. Make sure they have those awesome americaunas in! And like all hatchery birds- they will make great egg laying pets, but will not be the same quality of those from dedicated breeders
Also- I just noticed it auto corrected to americauna instead of ameracauna. We do receive both varieties and THEY ARE DIFFERENT!! so watch out for that!!

Ok! Thank you so much for the advice!

 

[knoturavggrl]

Hi everyone! My Birthday is coming up soon(June 3) , and I think my parents are going to get me some chicks! My mom has been questioning me like: What do you want for your birthday? Me: chicks!!! Her: If you could have a new breed of chicken, what would it be? I would ask, why do you want to know? She said, no reason, but what? I answered "Ameracauna". Later on in the week, she said "If you had some Ameracauna, and got a rooster, would you be sad to kill it?" I answered, a little. And she almost gave it away, when she said this: If we went to tractor supply, and looked at Ameracauna, would you be able to tell the breed of pullets, so you could just get pullets." I said: I think so. She gave me "Homework" to find out if I could before the start of June(Also, she said that on my birthday, she will have to go to tractor supply to "Get food for the dog", lol.
SO lets cut to the chase(I'm too excited thinking about the possibility of getting more chicks):
Is there a way to tell the gender when really young? Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

Tractor supply gets chicks in from hatcheries, some are labeled pullets, some are what they call straight run. Straight run are unsexed chicks so you really do not know at all what they will end up being gender wise and no there is no way for you to tell the difference.

There are two ways to know, with any certainty, if a chick is boy or a girl at such a young age. Vent sexing, hatcheries have trained professionals that do this, its hard and can not reasonably be done by someone without training and experience. The second way is getting a breed of chicken that is auto-sexing. This means that when chicks are born the boys and girls look different enough to tell right away if it is a boy or a girl.

Amerucanas are not an auto-sexing breed so you would have to rely on the hatcheries and pick from a pullet bin. This is not 100% though and you still could end up with an accidental Rooster. Be prepared to deal with that Rooster if it happens.

The most sure way to get a pullet would be to chose a breed that is auto sexing.

Auto-sexing breeds to look into:
Cream Legbars - lay blue eggs like the amerucana
Bielefelder- gorgeous stunning breed
Barred Plymouth Rocks- who doesn’t love stripes

There are more look into these breeds of your willing to consider other breeds

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Hi everyone! My Birthday is coming up soon(June 3) , and I think my parents are going to get me some chicks! My mom has been questioning me like: What do you want for your birthday? Me: chicks!!! Her: If you could have a new breed of chicken, what would it be? I would ask, why do you want to know? She said, no reason, but what? I answered "Ameracauna". Later on in the week, she said "If you had some Ameracauna, and got a rooster, would you be sad to kill it?" I answered, a little. And she almost gave it away, when she said this: If we went to tractor supply, and looked at Ameracauna, would you be able to tell the breed of pullets, so you could just get pullets." I said: I think so. She gave me "Homework" to find out if I could before the start of June(Also, she said that on my birthday, she will have to go to tractor supply to "Get food for the dog", lol.
SO lets cut to the chase(I'm too excited thinking about the possibility of getting more chicks):
Is there a way to tell the gender when really young? Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

Oh, how exciting! I got chicks on my birthday last year. I got to hand pick my chicks (whereas TSC might not allow you to be so specific), which was great. I went by the Feather Growth Theory (which I did pray before choosing, just saying). That is, pullets' feathers grow faster than cockerels'. I checked each of the chicks' flight feathers to go by that theory. Also, I checked each chick's comb too. I was looking for slightly bigger comb on the singles and extra rows on the peas to rule out cockerels. Out of 13 chicks, I got 3 cockerels- one of which I thought was a cockerel when I bought it.

The chicks whose genders I messed up on:

The first chick I used the Cuteness Theory. That is, the cutest chick is a cockerel. The Cuteness Theory has no ground to stand on except for coincidence. The reason why I even classify it as anything is because when hatching, the chick I wanted as a hen the most (or the cutest) always turned out to be a cockerel. On those 13 chicks, there was one chick (Turbulence) that I couldn't resist. Because of the Cuteness Theory I assumed that she would be a cockerel, but thankfully I was wrong.

Another missexed chicks I got were sex linked. I got two Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons and didn't know they were sex linked. I got a pullet and a cockerel which I secretly wanted, but when my breeding hopes was going to fall through, I had to rehome the rooster.

The last chick chick I got was an Olive Egger who apparently was sex linked too. He was barred, so if I was aware of the sex linked of the OE, I wouldn't have gotten him.

 

[Bella the Chicken Lover]

Oh, how exciting! I got chicks on my birthday last year. I got to hand pick my chicks (whereas TSC might not allow you to be so specific), which was great. I went by the Feather Growth Theory (which I did pray before choosing, just saying). That is, pullets' feathers grow faster than cockerels'. I checked each of the chicks' flight feathers to go by that theory. Also, I checked each chick's comb too. I was looking for slightly bigger comb on the singles and extra rows on the peas to rule out cockerels. Out of 13 chicks, I got 3 cockerels- one of which I thought was a cockerel when I bought it.

The chicks whose genders I messed up on:

The first chick I used the Cuteness Theory. That is, the cutest chick is a cockerel. The Cuteness Theory has no ground to stand on except for coincidence. The reason why I even classify it as anything is because when hatching, the chick I wanted as a hen the most (or the cutest) always turned out to be a cockerel. On those 13 chicks, there was one chick (Turbulence) that I couldn't resist. Because of the Cuteness Theory I assumed that she would be a cockerel, but thankfully I was wrong.

Another missexed chicks I got were sex linked. I got two Lemon Cuckoo Orpingtons and didn't know they were sex linked. I got a pullet and a cockerel which I secretly wanted, but when my breeding hopes was going to fall through, I had to rehome the rooster.

The last chick chick I got was an Olive Egger who apparently was sex linked too. He was barred, so if I was aware of the sex linked of the OE, I wouldn't have gotten him.

Thank you so much! Makes since... my Toby was the cutest of my three, and the only cockerel.

 

[Bella the Chicken Lover]

Thank you so much! Makes since... my Toby was the cutest of my three, and the only cockerel.

 

[Bella the Chicken Lover]

Tractor supply gets chicks in from hatcheries, some are labeled pullets, some are what they call straight run. Straight run are unsexed chicks so you really do not know at all what they will end up being gender wise and no there is no way for you to tell the difference.

There are two ways to know, with any certainty, if a chick is boy or a girl at such a young age. Vent sexing, hatcheries have trained professionals that do this, its hard and can not reasonably be done by someone without training and experience. The second way is getting a breed of chicken that is auto-sexing. This means that when chicks are born the boys and girls look different enough to tell right away if it is a boy or a girl.

Amerucanas are not an auto-sexing breed so you would have to rely on the hatcheries and pick from a pullet bin. This is not 100% though and you still could end up with an accidental Rooster. Be prepared to deal with that Rooster if it happens.

The most sure way to get a pullet would be to chose a breed that is auto sexing.

Auto-sexing breeds to look into:
Cream Legbars - lay blue eggs like the amerucana
Bielefelder- gorgeous stunning breed
Barred Plymouth Rocks- who doesn’t love stripes

There are more look into these breeds of your willing to consider other breeds

Thanks you so much! Very helpful! Somehow I didn't see your post before, so I apologize.

 

[knoturavggrl]

Thanks you so much! Very helpful! Somehow I didn't see your post before, so I apologize.

No worries, also if you cant find vent sexed pullets at Tractor supply, you can order them from the hatchery itself. McMurry, Hoover, Mt Healthy, Cackle, My Pet Chicken just to name a few.