Polish Chickens - Pullet/Cockeral

[AndiMarie]

Wow - a beautiful bird with a very nice crest. I would be beyond jacked if this was my bird and it was a cockerel. The crest is going to be gorgeous.

Ok - as for the guess on gender - a really tough call. At the moment, I am going to stick with cockerel. If you are able to get me a close up shot of the crest feathers, where I could see them individually- I'd probably be able to change by guess from 60% certainly to 75

But seriously. An incredible shaped crest here on the black, white crested. A real gem.

Here’s some close ups. S/He is not a fan of being caught.

 

[AndiMarie]

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Here’s some close ups. S/He is not a fan of being caught.

Here’s a few of the buff close up as well

 

[AndiMarie]

Here’s some pics from today. I’m still leaning towards the white crested being female and the buff being male.

You still thinking both male? @BastyPutt

 

[Party_Chicken]

Both are definitely cockerels

 

[AndiMarie]

Both are definitely cockerels

What signs are you seeing on the white crested that point to cockerel?

I’m loving this polish breed so wanting to learn all I can.

 

[AndiMarie]

Estimated hatch day is 4/25. We got them 4/28 and guessing they were a few days old at the time. So should be right at 7 weeks.

 

[Party_Chicken]

What signs are you seeing on the white crested that point to cockerel?

I’m loving this polish breed so wanting to learn all I can.

If you look above the red line you will see red color peaking out also the hair is a little whacky which is a cockerel trait.

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

I'm curious to find out what they are. To me the white crested still may be a pullet

 

[BastyPutt]

Sorry about that, I didn't see my mention here!

Yes, I believe they are still both cockerels.

I'm going with 95% certainty on the buff, and 81.88% on the white crested.

What signs are you seeing on the white crested that point to cockerel?

Then buff is very obvious because of the Mohawk and body shape.

The white crested is a bit more difficult, because it is more of an Afro at this point, and has a semi pear shaped body as well. However, the cockerel crest feathers develop slower than the pullet crest feathers in terms of shape. So when you have these that could possible be a pullet shaped crest, but look more like a perm and with less feather "shape" I guess you could say - are most likely a cockerel. Then you would also see some feather growth happening on what would be the sides of s humans nose bridge, I guess would be the best way to describe it.

I'm attaching a picture and in no way am I saying my chicken is better than yours, but this white crested is a result of selective breeding here, and she is 8.5 weeks old. It is a bit exaggerated, but you can see the feathers coming in around her nose piece. I wouldn't expect a hatchery quality chick to have them this extreme, at this age, but you would see some more growth there and around the eyes in general.

But... as usual, I may be wrong

 

[BastyPutt]

And to clarify - I am certainly not a polish breeding expert. I am still very much learning about genes, and we are starting to get a bit more serious about it, but right now we basically breed like varieties based on desired traits.
Essentially, the ticket on a Polish is the crest for both sexes. Males, you want kind of a Cindy Lauper look with long skinny feathering that blows in the wind, and females you need to be able to style them like a ball on their Head - they have to be very full. So right now, we are really just trying to get a flock of really nice, crested birds - then we will work on the other stuff.