Sex linked traits

[Cyprus]

I was going by size and feathering. I checked the wings at a day old. The barred had textbook girl feathers. The blue chick didn’t have any wing feathers at all until it was about five days old. I thought a silkie had gotten in there somehow!

As stated above, wing sexing cannot be used for most mix breeds.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ya I'm going with the genetics over size or feathering.
I don't agree that feather sexing doesn't work with mixed breeds so much.
Most birds that are feather sexed are mixed breeds AKA hybrids.
Birds have a sex linked feather growth rate gene.
Breed a fast feathering rooster to a slow feathering hen.
The rooster has two copies so he passes a fast feather gene to all offspring.
The hen passes her slow feather gene to male offspring only. Slow is dominate to fast so the fast/slow males will feather slow.
The pullets only have the one fast gene so they feather in fast.
For a purebred to produce feather sexed offspring you would need two lines of the same breed. One flock for fast feathering to produce the males and a second flock of slow feathering to produce the hens. Then breed those together.
I often here hatcheries sell feather sexed breeds but I can't see that happening much if any. Lots of birds just to produce feather sexed offspring when they already vent sex so many other birds.

 

[Amer]

Oh okay. Trust the white dot on the head indicating boy.

Feather sexing is used in breeds where they have breed it to be accurate.

There’s genes that determine feather growth rate, etc... so it’s inaccurate to use that especially in a mixed chick.

X2
I’m afraid that feather sexing it is very inaccurate, except in birds bred for it.
As well as the size.
Once one of the only boys I had in a batch of a dozen bantam Buckeyes was the tiniest chick, and now has perhaps the most handsome display of feathers.