Male or Female Chick?

[donrae]

Got 9 straight run chicks 1 wk old from a local breeder 4 weeks ago. They are split between Black Australorp and Aus x Lavender Orp. I think we lucked out and got 8 pullets and 1 cockerel. the first 3 pics are the suspected male, # 4 is typical of the other 8 and the last is a group shot with Mr? out front. He? seems to be the leader of the pack much of the time and does more strutting than anyone else. Opinions please.

Agree that bird is male, but 4 weeks is too early to call pullet with confidence, especially on an Orpington. Those combs can pop up later and surprise you.

 

[ClareScifi]

"Sunny Sky" wrote: A barred hen and a solid cockerel will always yield 50% barred cockerels and 50% solid pullets. Your chick was a male since it was barred.

Is this true? How could a hen always yield 50% cockerels and 50% pullets? Couldn't it be 20% cockerels and 80% pullets? Or am I misunderstanding what she is saying?

And does it matter if the rooster has a solid body but striped hackles? I will post a picture. And are we sure the chick we are trying to sex is barred? Here is the chick's final photo. Is he really barred? He looks barred to me, but is he barred looking enough to be considered truly barred and truly male???




final photo:

 

[ClareScifi]

Here is a picture of the father of the chick in the picture above. Sunny Sky says a solid rooster mated with a Barred Rock hen will produce a barred cockerel or a solid pullet. But would this rooster be truly considered "solid," since his hackle and tail feathers have this mixed coloration in them? Granted, most of his body is the solid gold, but his hackles and tail have kind of a striping. Could he have some Barred in his ancestry that could mean the chick was a female, instead of a male?

 

[ClareScifi]

And here is a second picture of him:

 

[ClareScifi]

Dang that chick was pretty! So sad it died. What would the female offspring of this rooster and a Barred Rock pullet look like, do you think? Anyone have an idea? Or a picture? This is the mother of the chick:

 

[donrae]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/261208/sex-linked-information

Read the first page of this thread. Tim explains sex link barring very well.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

50% males is a statistical average. Same with humans, statistically speaking you have a 50% chance of either sex though people beat the odds and have all girls or all boys but with large enough sample population it will always be 50% of either sex.

Barred females only give the barred gene to the male offspring. It's a sexed linked trait. Males give the barring gene to both sexes. If the male was a solid color as it was and female barred then any barring in offspring tells you with certainty that it's a male. Barred/cuckoo chicks at hatch will always have a spot on the head if carrying the barred gene.

 

[ClareScifi]

Egghead, would you say the chick WAS barred, judging from the photo I posted of him above the photos of his Mama and Papa? He was blue-colored. Does that look like barring in his feathers to you?

 

[ClareScifi]

The chick did have a blonde spot on its head. Is that a sign of barring?


You can see the blonde spot in this picture, and does the wing show barring even at that tender age?:

 

[ClareScifi]

I would love to see some pics of chickens that are the offspring of solid golden roosters and Barred Rock mothers. But would you say my rooster, the papa of the chick, really would be considered a solid colored rooster, even with these striped hackles and tail feathers that appear to have striping in them? Could the striping actually be barring? The feathers are a silver blue with darkish (I'd say black) striping. Could what I'm calling "striping" in the hackle feathers be a type of recessive barring??? Here is a picture: