Pullet or Cockerel? Black Sex Link

[QueenBubbles]

My runty BSL is doing good but is feathering out much slower than the healthy auburn one.
Runty:

Here is my healthy BSL:

What do you all think about whether the slow feathering is due to being runty and pecked the first week of life or because it might be a guy? They were are of the same hatching.

 

[subhanalah]

My runty BSL is doing good but is feathering out much slower than the healthy auburn one.
Runty:

Here is my healthy BSL:

What do you all think about whether the slow feathering is due to being runty and pecked the first week of life or because it might be a guy? They were are of the same hatching.

looks like it's been pecked of all its baby down. That's why it appears to be feathering slower, cos it's bald.

Could be mites, the skin looks red and irritated in the picture.

 

[QueenBubbles]

looks like it's been pecked of all its baby down. That's why it appears to be feathering slower, cos it's bald.

Could be mites, the skin looks red and irritated in the picture.

Here is a better pic for comparison of feather development and size:

Runty didn't run away with rest of the flock when I was picking them out. Got home and saw how dazed and pecked up he was. I went back and picked up the healthier looking one. When she sit and lets her wings fall away, her knees and shoulders are also pretty bare. But the Australorp doesn't have any bare spots. Is it possible that only the BSLs have mites?
I'll pick up the Sevin powder I saw mentioned, and dust them just in case, cause those bare spots do look red. Their neck skins are also red and bare but full of pin feathers.

 

[subhanalah]

It's possible that's why he's so much smaller than the others. Mites can affect weaker hatchling more than healthy ones.
Can you feed him a hard boiled egg every day to get him to bulk up and give him a boost? I'd also recommend giving him a drop of poultry nuttri-drench every other day for a while as well

 

[QueenBubbles]

It's possible that's why he's so much smaller than the others. Mites can affect weaker hatchling more than healthy ones.
Can you feed him a hard boiled egg every day to get him to bulk up and give him a boost? I'd also recommend giving him a drop of poultry nuttri-drench every other day for a while as well

Yes, I can give daily eggs - but probably have to let them all have some. . Thank you for the suggestions and advice!

 

[enola]

Sex linking is a "first generation" thing for these crosses, so you can't breed a sex-link hen to produce a sex linked chick, you have to start with the base parentage each time (meaning barred over red)

Sex links are made by breeding a red breed rooster to a barred breed hen.

Not by putting barred over red

 

[troy4]

Ots a roo a comb that big at that age

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Sex links are made by breeding a red breed rooster to a barred breed hen.

Not by putting barred over red

Which I know but always manage to turn it around anyway....

Thank you

 

[subhanalah]

It can be any solid colored rooster with a barred hen. Blue, buff, red or black. White only if it's a recessive white and not a dominant white (as in leghorns) if I understand it correctly.

 

[lightchick]

My Brown sex link from IDEAL is a mix of a Rhode Island red rooster and White Plymouth rock hen.
IDEAL is the only place that I've seen that has Brown sex links. Here she is!

















So it's pretty much the same cross, but one breed is a different color.