Link to telling sex of Rhode Island Red Rooster and Hens

[crc310]

I am certain we have one female, worried I may end up with 3 cockerels? Thy are 5 weeks old. Our girl has tiny fleshy comb and short tail. The possible roo on adopted mama has red comb and wattles and long tail. To mama's right, pink comb and wattles and long tail (smaller than first) and one hiding at mama's far right has an even smaller flesh comb (but bigger than our girl's comb) and wattles with a long tail. Thoughts?

 

[Tomgee]

NO Trinkets my other two birds are not RIRs...However, one is an Ameraucana which is a bigger breed. But she is smaller than Red and the legs on my two pullets are half the thickness of Red's. Sounds like your Red and my Red are indeed Cockerels. They developed the comb very early. My pullets have no comb yet. If you look at Fred's Hens photos they are proof. My Red looks like his cockerels. If it was a girl it would look like the pullets..no comb yet.

I am giving away my cockerel in two days!

Good luck.

 

[MelSoCity]

UPDATE: Okay, here is Patsy my RIR at 9 weeks. I believe she's the one letting out the terrible goose-like crow in the morning. I'm afraid she really is turning out to be a roo. Can anyone confirm my fears? Some keep telling me to just keep waiting, there's still a chance Patsy is a hen. I can't imagine...

 

[Fred's Hens]

cockerel.

 

[mg15]

Hi,
I don't know anything because I am so new, but I would say a rooster.
I am interested because I have 3 Hylines from a lady and 2 from TSC.
And they are around 6 weeks and 7 weeks. And the one from the Hyline lady
is having growth like yours but does not have wattles yet. The ones I have are
supposed to be mostly RIR.

 

[DanG144]

UPDATE: Okay, here is Patsy my RIR at 9 weeks. I believe she's the one letting out the terrible goose-like crow in the morning. I'm afraid she really is turning out to be a roo. Can anyone confirm my fears? Some keep telling me to just keep waiting, there's still a chance Patsy is a hen. I can't imagine...

You mean Patrick. Cockerel. Sorry, it happens in the best families.

 

[trinkets94]

Mostly cockerels in the photo above. 6-7 weeks. Note note the red combs and wattles.




Pullets above. Note the combs are still yellow and no red wattles. They won't get red wattles until 14-17 weeks of age.

So hard to tell this early! Carl's about 7 weeks, by my calculations, (maybe 6) and his wattles are nowhere near as pronounced as your photo, they're just visible spots under his/her chin. (just more visible than the other's) -and (s)he looks a little different about the head. The red comb does worry me though. I'll just have to keep watching and see what nature reveals! Thanks for all of your help.

 

[DanG144]

Post #40 above led me to a very interesting publication, that I wish I had seen much earlier.

http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/reprod/ReproTech/Feathersex/sld001.htm was the best explanation.

My wife and I chose chicks with larger wing feathers and larger tail tufts, noticeably horizontal in an effort to get pullets. We did this at three days.
I think we did well, 1 of 11 is showing signs of being a cockerell at 4 weeks.
Perhaps we could have done 100% if we had feather sexed them at that age.

 

[LillianMae]

If this is right I have a roo named Goldilocks.....

 

[5 Acre Rooster]

I don't know if there have been any more intence studies since the 1 I posted about. It was in a print off from a Univ. Study on sexing chicks and that part was only 1 paragraph, I think because the accuracey was not above the 80's range. ANd now days most hatcheries do guarentee 90%+ sexing on most birds they sell.