Lavender Orpington Chicks

[Mainemaid]

Last week I received an my order of Lavender Orpington chicks from Chicken Scratch Poultry, 18 babies in all. These birds are from the Hink-jc line. They are all healthy, beautiful and friendly babies, but like most people I plan to keep mostly girls and maybe one boy. Does anyone have any tips or hints for comparison sexing? I hope to be rid of the boys by Thanksgiving, due to lack of space.

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Well, pictures of course will help us sex them. But, for you at home with them watch for reddening combs and wattles, large combs, thick legs, slow feathering and bold behavior. ( This indicates males. )

 

[Mainemaid]

Thank you, I will post picks in am.

 

[Mainemaid]

These are 3 of my chicks. I started by marking them with my son's crayola markers. We are now using leg bands. They are about 8 days old. There are visible differences in wing feathers for the day they arrived in the mail.

White band: short wing feathers, no tail feather
Blue band: long wing feathers, start of tail feathers
Orange band: med wing feathers, no tail feathers

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[Mountain Peeps]

Those cuties are still to young to tell

 

[Mainemaid]

That's what I was afraid of. But I'm tracking weekly progress of each bird. Kind of a science experiment on early gender detection.