Question about chicken colours (gold partridge)

[bantambabyy]

i have a gold partridge pekin chick about 5 weeks old. of course roosters and hens look different and the roosters tend to have black feathers with the firey red on the back/ neck and hens tend to have black and brown pencilling over the body with a bright orange belly and head. my question is, will the hens and roosters feather out differently from the start, or will the distinct colours of the rooster appear later on? my chick is feathered out exactly how a typical gold partridge hen is and id just like to know if thats a sign that she is indeed a pullet. thanks for any help!

 

[NatJ]

I do not know about this particular color variety, so I can't say for sure whether males and females would be different from the time they grow their first feathers, or whether they would start by growing matching feathers and only later look different.

With other kinds of chickens, I have two sets of experiences that are sort-of contradictory:

For chicken colors where the roosters have black breasts and the hens do not, males will often have the black breast feathers by the time they have any breast feathers at all, so that can sometimes be used for sexing.

For feathers on the sides and back of the chicken, I have seen some chicks that feathered out with various patterns of black & brown, and later the males grew feathers of different colors while the females did not. That was a case where sexing by feather color would be a complete failure at certain ages.

You could post a photo of the chick, and see if anyone is able to tell.