Sexing partridge pattern chicks

UPDATE: The chicks are now 3 weeks old. One is significantly more feathered than the others, and I'm guessing it's a female - because of the early feathering, and because her feathers are coming in uniformly patterned throughout.

Here's all of them together:

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Here's Pooh, the one I think is female:
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Here's Lemonade. He's looking very male to me, mostly because of the comb, the thick legs, and he’s very dense and heavy compared to the other chicks. I had a cannon ball like that last year, he ended up male and got huge:
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Blinky has gotten a lot more patterning on his wings (used to have the least) but has the biggest comb and wattles with the most color on them, so he’s probably a lost cause. Definitely has the most masculine head of all of them:
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The Pretty One has a smaller comb than Lemonade or Blinky so there’s still hope, but the feather pattern is throwing me off. Still a lot of black, though that doesn’t seem to be such a strong indicator with the chicks being so mixed already, so who knows:
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The Baby also has a small comb, but is the smallest chick overall so maybe it just hasn’t developed yet. It, too, has more patterning on its wings now, and I just noticed that its legs are a different color than the other chicks’ - not quite as dark as slate, but something between pink and slate.
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Here are some closer-up head shots to show the combs:

Pooh:
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Lemonade:
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Blinky:
EB70A4C0-D680-4946-AFBF-8A2BEB9B0E46.jpeg



The Pretty One:
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The Baby:
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Any guesses?
 
If you don't mind @K0k0shka I'll post my partridge babies and maybe this will turn into a real informational thread for us and others too.

I've had two hatch yesterday. Obv too young (are they?) to sex. I'll post pics as they grow if that's OK.

This is the first one, Chippy.
 

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And this is the second one. Mouse.

I will be glad to hear any pointers on what to look for male/female wise specific to partridge colouring. They are very different from each other.

They are either OEGB, sebright or serama. No idea yet, so guesses on the breed welcome too!

Hope I'm not hijacking.
 

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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 :)
 
If you don't mind @K0k0shka I'll post my partridge babies and maybe this will turn into a real informational thread for us and others too.

I've had two hatch yesterday. Obv too young (are they?) to sex. I'll post pics as they grow if that's OK.

This is the first one, Chippy.
I don't mind at all! I would love for other people to post their pictures as their chicks grow, so we can get more samples to try to distill some logic out of. So thank you for posting. I've been looking for something like this, and having a really hard time finding anything - pointers on how to sex them, or pictures at different ages. So if we could collect a bunch of photos and information, that would be great.

My partridge orps are very confusing, because the line is still under development at Papa's Poultry and he's actively mixing in other colors of orpingtons to try to improve the health. So his partridges are wildly inconsistent right now. My 5 chicks all look different from each other, and I mean beyond the usual variation. So they are extra hard to sex. But I'll keep posting pictures, and we'll see if any of the early signs meant anything at all.
 
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 :)
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 don't mind at all! I would love for other people to post their pictures as their chicks grow, so we can get more samples to try to distill some logic out of. So thank you for posting. I've been looking for something like this, and having a really hard time finding anything - pointers on how to sex them, or pictures at different ages. So if we could collect a bunch of photos and information, that would be great.

My partridge orps are very confusing, because the line is still under development at Papa's Poultry and he's actively mixing in other colors of orpingtons to try to improve the health. So his partridges are wildly inconsistent right now. My 5 chicks all look different from each other, and I mean beyond the usual variation. So they are extra hard to sex. But I'll keep posting pictures, and we'll see if any of the early signs meant anything at all.
Thank you!

I used to have Orpingtons (English versions as I'm in the UK. I had a male and female partridge and blimey they were the most beautiful chickens I've ever had.

I bought them from Essex Orpingtons here in the UK. Their website is worth a look just for the pictures of all the colours they have developed. I wish they did bantams as I'd buy more in an instant. I only keep bantam breeds now.

Sadly my male partridge Orpington died only a few months old. He just had a heart attack in front of me, dropped like a stone. I was heartbroken. He was such a gentle giant of a boy. I don't think I have photos any more as this was about 10 years ago.
 
Thank you!

I used to have Orpingtons (English versions as I'm in the UK. I had a male and female partridge and blimey they were the most beautiful chickens I've ever had.

I bought them from Essex Orpingtons here in the UK. Their website is worth a look just for the pictures of all the colours they have developed. I wish they did bantams as I'd buy more in an instant. I only keep bantam breeds now.

Sadly my male partridge Orpington died only a few months old. He just had a heart attack in front of me, dropped like a stone. I was heartbroken. He was such a gentle giant of a boy. I don't think I have photos any more as this was about 10 years ago.
I much prefer the English Orpingtons to the American ones. I just LOVE how round and luxuriously fluffy they are! :love All of my Orpingtons are English. I have three colors - Silver Laced, Lemon Cuckoo and Red Partridge. I fell in love with the partridges the moment I saw them! I have been salivating over Essex Orpingtons pictures online! I so wish I could find those fancy colors in the US as well. But I'll be happy if I can finally get some Red Partridge hens. My batch from last year produced only one partridge chick out of 6 eggs (the other colors had a much higher hatch rate than that). He was glorious and the best chicken ever in terms of temperament, but he, too, died young, at only 7 months old. Dropped dead like yours, and he was otherwise healthy :( So I'm trying this again this year, ordered hatching eggs from the same breeder. He specializes in English Orpingtons. I got 5 chicks this time, and I'm REALLY hoping for two females. It's hard to find English Orpingtons so I had to have the eggs shipped, and they travelled coast to coast from California to Massachusetts, and are hard to hatch... But I really really want those big, fluffy partridge beauties!
 
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 :)
 

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