need help telling roos from pullets

[littledel]

I have several black sexlink rooster chicks that I accidently added 4 barred rock pullet chicks in the mix and now I don't know which is which, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[peggym]

Hi Peggy here. I've found that usually the roos combs are a little more advanced then the hens, but other than that I'm just as lost as you are!!!1

 

[RL]

Wouldn't the BSL cockerels only have black wash on their feet and not the whole front of the leg?

 

[littledel]

Well, I have three more days to figure this out, then it is off to the poultry swap. I want to keep the barred pullets, but I don't want to feed 12-15 BSL rooster chicks for a month or more either.
On another subject, I had been told on an earlier post that crossing a RIR roo over an Australorp hen would not produce a sexlink chick. Well I hatched off 10 of these chicks and 3 had white dots on their heads and 7 were black headed. All the black headed ones turned out to be pullets and the white dots were all roos. Makes me wonder....

 

[littledel]

I read somewhere that on the barred rocks, the female chicks wings will be black with white barring and the male chicks will be white with black barring. Anyone have any experience in this area that can tell me if this is so. Because if so, I plan to check my babies out when I get home.

 

[littledel]

Well, I went through my baby chicks and out of about 23 look a like chicks I have narrowed it down to 7 chicks that may be the little barreds I am wanting to keep. They are supposed to be 4 little pullets. Hopefully by Saturday I can narrow that down even more. We are planning to sell about 35-40 chicks Saturday at the local poultry swap along with 3 grown roos (a production New Hampshire and 2 Buff Orphs) and I am giving the money (minus a sack of feed) to my daughter for helping take care of the chicks. She is really excited about this. I will have about a 50-50 ratio of roos to pullets. Wish me luck.

 

[Mervin]

Quote:
Yeah, I know what you're saying. Barring on females is supposed to be darker b/c they feather up faster than the males or something like that. At a few weeks old it would be hard to tell though. My one-and-half week olds only have maybe two bars on their primaries.