Is this Silkie a pullet or rooster?

[eaw713]

My family and I are new to raising chickens and have fallen in love with silkies! We have 4 so far that we bought from a local breeder. I’m pretty sure 2 of them are pullets but the other 2 I’m not so sure. Help!

 

[Cyprus]

Pullets

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I’m pretty sure 2 of them are pullets but the other 2 I’m not so sure. Help!

Hi there, welcome to BYC!

Please tell us their age and how long you've had them? A more clear pic of the combs and maybe a pic of 2 not in question?



ETA: great side shots you got already. Those are often very helpful.

 

[eaw713]

Hi there, welcome to BYC!

Please tell us their age and how long you've had them? A more clear pic of the combs and maybe a pic of 2 not in question?



ETA: great side shots you got already. Those are often very helpful.

Thank you so much! Here are a couple more pics, it’s so hard to get them to stay still!

 

[eaw713]

Pullets

Thank you!

 

[eaw713]

Thank you so much! Here are a couple more pics, it’s so hard to get them to stay still!

They are 5-7 wks old.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

They are 5-7 wks old.

Too young to tell anything for real for most Silkies and you could still have later bloomers.

Sometimes behavior can be a good indicator of gender.. other times, not so much. I have identified some Silkie boys as young as 2-3 days old by behavior. And had one crow at 4 weeks! Same with feather color and so many other things, sometimes they are good indicators but not always. I would be surprised to see the one with reddish feathers and slight pink under it's comb comes out pullet. But I would not jump to any conclusions at this point. Crest, hackles, and saddles are still coming in.

Give it a couple more weeks and I bet you will have even more behavioral identifiers. And the physical ones will also become more apparent.

50/50 would be very average gender ratio... but I have gotten lucky at times.

 

[eaw713]

Thank you so much for all the info!!! It really doesn’t matter to us if they are pullets or roosters, they will be my 6yr old daughters pets but it’s still fun trying to figure it out! The brown one is definitely the most vocal of the bunch. It makes different sounds than the others.

 

[Mylied]

The brown and black is most likely a cockerel. It's got an awful lot of comb and red for 5-6 weeks old. Silkies develop slow. Not sure on the other as they are very young to sex.

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

I'm going to say they are both cockerels. Like stated above the one has a lot of comb already and both look to have streamers instead of puff.