sexing babies by their feathers/wings

[Mother of All]

my 29 chicks are 1 1/2 weeks old and when I spreed their little wings out, some feathers are all lined up from tip to side. others have there tip feathers(flying feathers?) longer then their other wing feathers. I have been told that the ones with all their feather lined up are roosters and the ones with 2 different size feathers on their wings will be hens is there any truth about this. I'm also asking for my sister in KS she is a teacher and one of the other teachers just hatched a few in their class room and wanted to know. some one told her that when they are just 1 or 2 days old that the babies hens have feathers on their legs. Is any of this making since or can anyone help on telling me how to tell the sex of all they babies.

 

[farmboydj]

the best time to sex chicks is when they are 2-4 days old here is a link to a video that sort of shows how to feather sex and what it looks like hope this helps

 

[pdsavage]

Feather sexing is easy, but it requires that the chickens be specially bred to manifest their sex in differences in the feathers as hatchlings. These are usually hybrids rather than true breeds, and are called sex linked chickens. Female chickens in these breeds have longer wing pinfeathers than the males do, which makes them relatively easy to tell apart. Most chickens do not have these traits bred into them, and the hatchlings are identical to all but the skilled eye of the professional chicken sexer.
This method used to determine the sex of newly hatched chicks is only possible if a female from a slow-feathering breed is crossed with a male from a fast-feathering breed. The sex of the chicks produced from this cross can be determined during the first 48 hours after hatching by looking at the primary and secondary feathers located on the chick's wings. The primary feathers will be noticeably longer than the secondary feathers on a female chick. On a male, the primary and secondary feathers are the same length.