- Jul 21, 2010
- 27
- 1
- 22
I got a shipment of chicks back in July from My Pet Chicken; I paid extra to make sure that they were all sexed to be female since I have had problems with roosters in the past (namely them constantly attacking me and the other hens) and didn't want to go through that again. I got four Quail Antwerp Belgian Bantam chicks (AKA Bearded d'Anvers) in the order, two of which died soon after arriving despite all my efforts to keep them alive. Of the remaining two, one seemed weaker and smaller than the other so I paid a lot of extra attention to that one and naturally grew attached...but now I'm afraid that the same chick may be a rooster due to how big its comb is in comparison to the other d'Anvers chick (which has little to no comb at all). The chicks are currently just under 7 weeks old but were 5 weeks old when these pictures were taken (though they look more or less the same now). So how likely is it that the chick with the comb is a rooster? I really don't want to have to part with this chick but dealing with rooster attacks every day is not something I want to experience again either
Here are pics of the two d'Anvers chicks:
P.S.
Can DNA sexing be done on chicks of this age? I've read posts about a company called Avian Biotech that will test a feather you send to them to determine whether the bird is male or female but that's been mostly with pigeons and such, so I don't know if the same thing would apply to bantam chicks.

Here are pics of the two d'Anvers chicks:






P.S.
Can DNA sexing be done on chicks of this age? I've read posts about a company called Avian Biotech that will test a feather you send to them to determine whether the bird is male or female but that's been mostly with pigeons and such, so I don't know if the same thing would apply to bantam chicks.