Questions about EE's and how to sex them

[stone_family3]

I have an EE that everyone is telling me is a roo. When I called to exchange my Cochin and EE, the guy told me that it was an Ameraucanas and that they are very hard to sex until they start crowing. Then gave me some long story about how only certain people from Japan can truely sex them and it takes a lot of money. I think he was full of it, since he seemed sure he was giving me pullets when I bought them. It really left a bad taste in my mouth for local breeders

Is that true, he said I could bring it and he'd be happy to let me look at the others and I could still exchange, but he told me I could still run into the same problem with getting another roo.

Is there a sure fire way to tell if they are male or female? How do I tell, I'll be picking out of the same batch of chicks so they're also 9 weeks old. I exchange them on Monday.

Here are the original threads and a pic of the birds I'm talking about
Ingrid my EE
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=568017

IMAG0650 by StonesChickens, on Flickr

Violet aka Baby Roo my Cochin
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/edit.php?id=7181230

IMAG0463 by StonesChickens, on Flickr

 

[fshinggrl]

MOST black/white EEs are cockerels. Yours has huge legs and looks like the comb is rather red. There is an EE color thread around in this forum that you can look through to get an idea what 'female' colors are. IF there is splashes of red in the wings, it is most likely a cockerel as well. At 9 weeks I think you can do a pretty good job at finding a pullet if you are looking at not much of a comb, smaller legs & no obvious boy coloring.
I would say the two pictures you posted, the chickens in them are most likely cockerels.

 

[farmerChef]

EE come in a lot of different colors. Your roo is a common rooster coloring. At 9 weeks, most of the roos should have red combs. you could try to pick chicks with no color showing in thier combs. EEs are harder to sex because of the pea comb. Japan is famous for vent sexing, and it is very hard to do, even if your a pro. He is giving you some bs, but you should have a good idea of whats whats at 9 weeks. I have a little roo that started getting a red comb at a week old,

he's so cute!

 

[stone_family3]

Thanks guys I wish I could keep them and if it was just Baby Roo I wouldn't have though about exchanging him (it's a 45 mile drive from my house), just kept him secretly until he started being loud

With two roos though it's a bit much and I'm already an underground chicken keeper and can't afford to get caught.

I love them and hate to see them go.

 

[debid]

At 9 weeks, you should have a very good shot at choosing nothing but pullets if you know what feather patterns to look for. So yes, by all means, read through the EE color sexing thread. Lots of GREAT information in there!

Also, professional vent sexers are uncommon, the skill was developed in Japan, and it would be cost-prohibitive to hire someone to sex your small-scale hatches. However, if this person is selling "sexed" chicks, then they have set the expectation that these are not straight run. I also bought from a small-scale breeder selling "sexed" chicks but I only got 1 cockerel out of 14. That's as good as any hatchery! So, while giving up on small-time breeders is one way of handling it, giving up on someone who has proved themselves dishonest makes more sense.

 

[stone_family3]

Quote:
Yeah I think my mistake was I didn't research the breeds, I just knew I wanted colored eggs. He was selling them as sexed, but then admited when I asked for an exchange that they weren't sexed.

Luckily I live within driving distance of Meyer hatchery and I hopefully won't have this problem again so I'm going to try them. I'm also going to try and hatch my own in the spring.

 

[airmechreed]

I have EE ers and the eaisiest way to tell if they are male or female is the feathers around the neck area ( forgot the technical term of the feathers in that area), anyway boys will have pointed featers and girls will have rounded and of course my roo had bright red pea comb at 6 weeks and started to try to crow at that time also. Vent sexing is not hard if done in the first four days of the chicks life after that you are more likely to cause the endtrails to come out of the vent. There are many places on the web that teach how to vent sex but it is only about 90% accurate. It is hard to explain with out you seeing a video but I have tried it and so far so good no more roos. But I am no expert.

 

[Lothiriel]

Colors in a cockerel will usually be splotchy and most have a big red patch on the shoulders. Also, at 9 weeks cockerels will have very obviously red combs.

 

[skillswife]

My EE pullets looked like Roos for quite some time and even everyone on here said they were roo's early on. But both are laying nice blue green eggs now. So I don't think anything besides hearing it crow or seeing an egg can give exact results.