Sexing Bantam Orpintgons

[RhianfaIar]

Hi Everyone,

We hatched 9 bantam orpingtons (from 12 eggs) under our broody on 14th of August, so they are 3 weeks old now.
We've read loads about how to know if they are pullets or roos, but everyone is contracting each other.
Can anyone help?

Chick 1

Chick 2

Chick 3

Chick 4

Chick 5

Chick 6

Chick 7

Chick 8

Chick 9

We are fairly sure that Chick 5 is a Roo!

 

[Kelsie2290]

Congrats on your nice broody hatch, looks like she did a good job. Those are really clear nice pictures of the chicks you took. Three weeks is really early to try and determine sex accurately, especially on slow maturing breeds. On chicks you can't sex by color, you generally are going by size and color of the comb and wattles, rate of feathering (roos are often slower), body type (roos are generally stockier and have heavier legs and feet) general stance (roos tend to be more upright, girls more horizontal). Chicks do develop at different rates, and some roos will be obvious before others, some breeds seem to have a lot of late blooming roos. I would give them a couple of weeks and take a new set of pictures, they should have started developing more by them. Looking at your guys and strictly going mostly by comb size and color compared to each other, I would be suspicious of #6,7 & 5,3 because of feathering and body type. Did you mean the broody is an Orpington? Unusual colors and the last chick looks to have a peacomb and feathered legs?

 

[RhianfaIar]

Thank you for the reply Kelsie,

The chicks are now 5 weeks old, so we will get some new pics of them next week when they turn 6, we can see their combs are starting to develop more, so hopefully by next week we will be able to get a good idea of what sex they are! Fingers crossed