Is this true?....

[Bocktobery 10]

I was looking online for ways to sex baby chicks and found this chart someone drew: see attached file


I wish I could give proper credit to the person or persons who drew it, but have not found any names. But I’m posting it here to ask all of you, is this basically true? Or is it only true with a certain breed? Do male baby chicks not have any tail feathers by age 2 weeks? Or is this only in general?


Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[sourland]

You are correct in guessing that it only works for certain breeds.

 

[debid]

Nope. Sexing by feathering rate is like sexing by down color. It works only if the parents had the correct background to generate a sex-linked trait. And, like color sexable chicks, it's a single generation trick.

 

[debid]

Amberlinks are the one example that I know of that is feather growth sexed.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Feathering speed is a double-factor trait, which means that if a chicken carries two copies, it's more powerful than one copy. A male bird can carry two feather-speed genes, but a female can only carry one. Because of this, in a slow-feathering breed, a male feathers out more slowly than the female does. It's especially easy to tell with Barred Rocks. At two weeks, no tail = male.