Red Stars; may this one be a rooster?

[chickychicka]

I got 3 chicks on Sunday. First time chicken owner! We were told the are sex-linked Red Stars, females are yellow, males would be brown. Two of them look yellow without doubt. What about the one in the front? He/She's a bit darker but NOT brown, but has dark wing tips. They are only 5 days old.


Here you can see the dark feathers starting to grow, only on the wings though.


And here's one more of him (?)
Thanks for all your input!

 

[Red Barn Farms]

From my understanding red star is just one name used by different hatcheries. Also other names like Golden Comets, etc. They look to be all male. I don't really know though but mine were a whole lot darker then those. Cute birds! The females are generally reddish in color and males being more on the yellow side. From the images they look mostly yellow.

 

[Fred's Hens]

In a red sex link, the pullets are golden/red/brown and the cockerels are virtually yellow/white. Where did you buy these chicks?

 

[chickychicka]

Maybe I should have mentioned that I live in Europe. That may make a difference. The chicks I got from a chicken owner who had previously yellow male chicks and brown female ones. I read something about first generation chicks and not first generation chicks, the colors I guess can vary, I don't know, this is my first time. I thought the one was different looking at his wings and was looking for opinions. Thanks!

 

[farmerChef]

usually the males are white and the females are red. If he is breeding sexlinks together, they cannot be sexed be color. Can you ask him what breed the parents are?

 

[dretd]

Hi and

What a bunch of cuties.

The bad news for you is that if these are a cross between two sex links, then they cannot be sexed at hatch (as FarmerChef said) in the second generation and you have three straight-run chicks.


If you know what the parents look like, then you can plug the colors in to the chicken calculator and see what ratios of colors the babies will have:

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

I put in ISA Brown as the male and female (ISA Brown is a common red sex link, a cross between a New Hampshire Red and White) and get 1/8 each male and female red patterned columbian male and 3/8 each male and female White patterned red columbian so you get a 1/4 chance of a dark and 3/4 chance of light patterning, close to what you have (1/3 dark and 2/3 light). Not sure if this exactly what you have since we don't know the original breeds, but hopefully this will get you started in understanding the genetics of the colors!