Little boy or girl serama?

[chuckachucka]

I have a serama chick who is now 3 weeks old (21 days) and I can't figure out yet if its a girl or a boy. I will have to find it a new home if it's a boy so I'm hoping for a girl. I keep comparing it to pics of my Pekin bantam chicks from earlier this year but its comb is bigger than the female Pekin and smaller and paler than the male Pekin's comb was at this stage. Is it just too soon to tell??
Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

[azygous]

Yes, it's too soon to tell. But you only need to wait another two or three weeks. A cockerel will show a conspicuously rapidly developing, reddening comb by age six weeks. At the same time, you should also be able to get a sneak peek at whatever colorful plumage it will have as a rooster by parting the back feathers to see if there are any colorful pin feathers emerging. "Wing shoulders" should also be sporting these contrasting colored pin feathers.

My guess is it's a pullet, but it's only a guess at this stage.

 

[chuckachucka]

@azygous i know you said to wait a couple of weeks but I'm impatient so here's an update after one week. The chick's comb has started to very slightly link up around the edges but is the same size and I am still unsure. These are updated pics from day 28. What do you think?

 

[azygous]

My computer (or my eyes) doesn't pick up on the very subtle pink shade in photos. But the comb development is leaning toward cockerel.

The best thing to do is compare this chick with your others of the same age. A cockerel will stand out with noticeably more orange in the comb to the pullets very drab pale cream or yellow.

This orange shows up at around three or four weeks and it simply isn't present in pullets. It gradually turns more red-orange, and by five or six weeks, it's a red that you can't escape noticing.

I have a chick right now that was supposed to be a pullet, auto sexed as female at hatch, got the yellow-orange comb early on, but retained all the characteristic markings of a pullet. The comb, however, kept getting more red-orange, and now at seven weeks, I have to start calling him a cockerel since he's getting colored feathers only a roo will have.

The early yellow-orange comb never lies. Even when one tries to convince herself it's not going to turn red. (Sigh)

 

[chuckachucka]

thanks! I haven't got any other seramas as this was the only one that hatched from a shipped batch, but I do have a pair of Pekin bantams and the little boy got such a red, bigger comb so early. It was noticeable from two weeks! On the other hand the Pekin girl had just a flat yellow comb until around two months.

Based on what you said about the telltale orangeness, I'm now thinking cockerel for this serama.

 

[WVduckchick]

I'm about 50/50 on yours! I can't guess yet.

I have both breeds also, and some of my seramas are quick to show their boyishness, others are slow. I had one very fast developing pullet that I was sure was a cockerel, until the older males started mating her, and she allowed it! She started laying shortly after that, at about 5 months old. Cochins/pekins usually take a little longer to determine, but the drastic difference seems to pop out overnight!

Not scientific or foolproof, but I watch for the comb to part the feathers on the head. If the back half of the comb stays hidden longer, those tend to be more females.

These are 3 weeks old today. I think I have a male and 2 females, but I'm still not overly confident of it. But its fun guessing!

 

[azygous]

My money is on that little guy with the pronounced comb being a cockerel. If I'm right, the comb will get more orange each day.

 

[drumstick diva]

My friend has two matronly seramas 5 years old or so. When she showed me pictures of them as chicks with orange combs I was sure she got cockerels instead. They obviously were pullets as later they started laying eggs and pretending they were broody. They didn't get the gist of it. Took over the dog's bed and were sitting on NO eggs(( human fed the eggs to the dog). They would leave as often as they felt like it to eat, drink, poo, watch TV with human mama & then take over the dog bed again, and be ferocious to him.

 

[chuckachucka]

Here is a couple of photos of his/her comb at day 29. I think it shows up the slight orange of the comb and pink around the edges that wasn't there a week ago. I was really starting to think roo but Drumstick Diva, you have given me some hope for a pullet! I want it to be a girl so much so I can keep her...the guessing game is killing me.
@WVduckchick Looks like two girls and a boy to me too and so cute. They are younger than mine and it's much clearer. I'm jealous!

 

[azygous]

I kept holding out hope for my recent Legbar, thinking the orange, well developed comb was just a precocious fluke. Mind you, this chick is of a breed where they can be autosexed, the pullets having distinct dark chipmunk stripes and dark heads and the cockerels are a washed out blurred mishmash of no distinct markings and light heads. As they feather out, the girls have bronze breasts and the boys a grey barring.

My chick was a classic pullet at hatch. By age four weeks she looked in every respect like her egg donor, a miniature copy of a Cream Legbar hen, with no light barred feathers and a dark bronze breast.

After the comb began to turn yellow early on next to the other Legbar chick's pale washed out comb, I suspected it was a sneaky little cockerel. Around week four, I started cuddling the chick and parting the back feathers, looking for that first tell-tale orange pin feather. The roosters of this breed have bright orange saddle feathers and orange wings. Hens have no colored feathers, just brown and shades of greys.

This week, at age seven weeks, I spied the first of the orange back feathers and going by the redness of the comb, if this seven-week old chick was a pullet, she'd be ready to lay eggs. Game over. I got me a spare roo. Good thing I named the chick Toots. It'll serve him okay and not embarrass him too much.

There is a limitation on trying to judge comb color from photos over the internet . My computer doesn't pick up subtle pinks. Even in real life, different people can perceive color differently. Variations of reds and greens are colors people can often get into brisk arguments over. Trying to judge these colors from a photo on a computer just isn't going to result in definitive conclusions. Only the OP can judge for themselves what colors they are seeing.

The best way to judge color of chick combs is to compare them to each other. The girls have virtually no color to their combs until nearing maturity. The boys combs will begin getting color, yellow at first, around three weeks. By comparing your chicks, this difference is very noticeable. It's your very first clue you may have a cockerel slipped into the picture. I've never had a yellow comb at three weeks turn into an egg-layer.