Sexing partridge pattern chicks

[K0k0shka]

I know it’s still early (12 days old), but just out of curiosity... would anybody venture a guess as to the sex of these babies? Red Partridge Orpingtons from Papa’s Poultry. I’m worried that none of them look convincingly female

For context: they vary greatly in color and pattern, because the breeder is outcrossing to other colors of Orpingtons to improve the genetic diversity of the line. So these chicks range from yellow to red and various browns, and some have a distinct chipmunk pattern while others have no chipmunk patterning whatsoever. So they're throwing me off. Does this mean their feather patterning will be inconsistent as well? And less reliable for sexing? Or is the partridge pattern an all or nothing deal - they either have it and feather out correctly, or they don't?

I don't have a lot of experience with genetics and how patterns develop, so I'm curious to see what you guys think. I will also update this thread as the chicks grow, so that others might find it useful later on, to see how each color and pattern turned out.


Lemonade (weak chipmunk pattern):

Pooh (weak chipmunk pattern on head only, none on body):

Blinky (no chipmunk pattern at all). His wing feathers have the most black and least amount of patterning of all of them. He also has the most prominent comb, and the most prominent personality... Which are all bad signs

The Pretty One (with the most pronounced chipmunk pattern and high contrast feathers):

The Baby (has okay chipmunk patterning, but too much black on the feathers which isn't a good sign):

If anybody is female at all, I'm guessing Pooh and maybe the Pretty One, potentially maybe even Lemonade as well, if I'm being optimistic, but I doubt it. Lemonade is the least people-social of the bunch. Blinky and the Baby look male to me based on the wing feathers (and Blinky's comb and personality).

Let me know what you guys think!

 

[K0k0shka]

They're too young to sex.
What are going by for your guesses?
Partridge is a specific pattern. Red partridge is the same pattern with mahogany.
All the variations they're showing is because they have other genes mixed in and aren't pure red partridge.

I'm going by how uniform the feather pattern is and how much black there is. Males have more black in larger patches, while females are uniform throughout. I do agree that they are very young, I'm just curious. Also, I wanted to start the thread now and include baby photos, and add more photos as they grow, including once they are full grown, for a fuller picture of how the pattern develops. Sort of like a study And then we can look back and see if any of my observations were even correct this early on, and if one can use the amount of black (or anything else) to try to guess early on. I think it would be interesting to observe.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

Cute chicks! I highly considered going through Papa's Poultry last year! I ended up not just because of how far they were away and didn't want to risk chicks dying via mail. How was your experience with them? They're right on the verge of successful sexing. Pooh is a pullet and I am pretty sure Lemonade, Blinky, and The Pretty One are cockerels. This is going off of the darker breast feathers I'm seeing. I don't see any on The Baby yet, so I will remain neutral. Definitely update in just around a week, by that time the breast feathers should be more visible

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

I ordered hatching eggs from Papa's both last year and this year, and had a 50% hatch rate both times, which is to be expected for shipped eggs, even impressive, given that they flew coast to coast from CA to MA! I would definitely not have live chicks shipped that far, but I wanted to hatch anyway. I'm very happy with the service - he always adds extras, packs the eggs really well, and he's quick to answer questions via email.

I agree about Lemonade, Blinky and the Pretty One. I have my last hopes on the Baby... I really want at least two females, because it would make integration easier. I'm not keeping any of the males. A friend of mine has generously offered to foster them until they're big enough to be worth butchering, so when they outgrow the brooder, they're going straight to her farm, and I would really love it for Pooh to have a buddy to integrate with when it's time to put her in the coop/run integration partition. I can't put one of the males with her even temporarily, because my neighbor hates me and will give me hell if he hears even the slightest attempt at a crow... So I don't want to risk it.

I hope the Baby is a pullet for your sake too! At least you for sure have one pretty girl

 

[K0k0shka]

I read it in this article: https://backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com/chickens-101/how-to-tell-the-sex-of-baby-chicks/#:~:text=Using a wild-type, or,have brown stripes and markings.

It said: There are many instances when a chick’s down color can be used as a method for how to tell the sex of baby chicks. For more than 100 years, and possibly more like a thousand years, poultrymen raising chickens with the wild-type color pattern (Black-Breasted Red, Light Brown, Silver Duckwing, etc.) have been able to tell the male chicks from the female chicks at hatch by down color. The males have clean heads with only two colors of dorsal stripes, which often end in a dot at the crown; females have three colors of dorsal stripes, a black or dark brown added outside the other two, and the strips typically run to and through the crown.

What do you think?

I think that's probably true if you have purebred chickens. With mine, some didn't even have stripes at all at hatch

 

[Chicalina]

Did I already post this link? It made interesting, if not confusing, reading.

https://cluckin.net/sexing-barnevelders.html

 

[Chicalina]

Basically fits with your experience that males only ever have single lacing whereas females have double. And bald shoulders is a boy thing.

 

[Chicalina]

so the sexing rules are...

there are no rules!

 

[K0k0shka]

9 week photo update!

Absolutely 100% all three are female. Wohoo!

Pooh:

The Baby:

The Pretty One:

They don't have official names yet...

Here are some top down views so you can see just how different their patterns are, even though they are the same breed from the same breeder:

All together:

Pooh is finally starting to develop some real lacing on her feathers (most of them still look more barred than laced):

Pretty is ahead of the game and has had nice double laces for a few weeks now, even though most of her is still black:

The Baby hasn't figured out how to do the lacing quite yet:

 

[The Moonshiner]

They're too young to sex.
What are going by for your guesses?
Partridge is a specific pattern. Red partridge is the same pattern with mahogany.
All the variations they're showing is because they have other genes mixed in and aren't pure red partridge.