Rooster or too soon to tell?

[lrach73]

I have two chicks, about 5 weeks old, with very prominent combs and growing wattles. See attached picture.

The Rhode Island is aggressive too. If we open the coop, it will come right over, peck at us and even flew straight up and scratched my son yesterday.

The Plymouth Rock with the prominent comb isn't aggressive to us, but it regularly gets into chest bumping squabbles with the RI.

I keep reading it's too soon to know if they are roosters, but they look and (one) behave differently than my other chicks.

Thoughts?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Can you take some individual photos of the chicks? For each chick a head shot showing combs and wattles. For each chick a profile shot showing legs and posture. Five weeks is often when the differences between cockerels and pullets start to show up. While it can sometimes be inconclusive five weeks is a good time to start looking for those differences. I've had some that took 3 months to be sure but most if the time you can get a real good idea at 5 weeks or thereabouts.

What I'm looking for specifically is the size of the comb, whether or not they have wattles, and the color of the cob and wattles. In the profile shot how heavy are the legs, general body conformation, and whether they have an upright posture or not. Five weeks is too early to look at saddle and hackle feathers and the tail feathers. Those come into play later.

At first glance the comb on that red one looks male, can't see the barred one. But better shots would really help.

Where are my manners, welcome to the forum.

 

[lrach73]

Thank you! I will take pictures once the rain stops and I can avoid getting drenched, lol.

What are the odds that two of my seven female chicks would end up being roosters?! And I can't imagine being able to keep both, if they are in fact roosters .

 

[FeatherstoneFrm]

I bought 6 at TSC, 4 pullets and 2 straight run in hopes of getting 1 roo. 1 straight run and 2 of the pullets turned out to be cockerels. 1 of them died so now I have 2 cockerel and 3 pullets. 1 Australorps was clearly male by 4 weeks with a nice red comb and wattles coming in. The other is smaller and took a while to be sure.
I will keep them both since they are growing up together and they are working out their pecking order themselves. It is fun to watch them dance around each other and the in air chest bump is hilarious. They don't actually hurt each other. I'll need to get a few more pullets to keep everyone happy.
I'm not sure if I would want to keep an aggressive rooster though.

 

[MilesFluffybutt]

Sexing chickens is an art, not a science, so the odds are pretty good you'll get a couple of roosters. I think most places push a 90 percent accuracy rate for certain breeds and a small order plummets that accuracy rate.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I haven't had enough coffee to work out the odds for getting two cockerels out of seven chicks. Most hatcheries give a 90% chance of them being correct so if you use that 90% per chick a good mathematician should be able to figure the actual odds. The few times I've gotten vent sexed pullets from a hatchery my results were a few less cockerels than the 90% rate, but those are just odds per chick.

I once got 7 pullets out of 7 straight run chicks. The odds of that happening are less than 1%. Some people get 7 cockerels out of 7 straight run and are convinced the hatchery purposely sent them all cockerels. But someone has to be in that 1% that will get 7 cockerels. It's just odds, that is the way probabilities work.

 

[lrach73]

This is as cooperative as they were interested in being.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They hate cameras don't they. Both of those are males.

 

[4 ever Orpington]

I have two chicks, about 5 weeks old, with very prominent combs and growing wattles. See attached picture.

The Rhode Island is aggressive too. If we open the coop, it will come right over, peck at us and even flew straight up and scratched my son yesterday.

The Plymouth Rock with the prominent comb isn't aggressive to us, but it regularly gets into chest bumping squabbles with the RI.

I keep reading it's too soon to know if they are roosters, but they look and (one) behave differently than my other chicks.

Thoughts?

 

[lrach73]

They hate cameras don't they. Both of those are males.

Thank you! That's what I suspected. I hate that they are roosters, since that likely means I cannot keep them AND fewer eggs now .