Sexing partridge pattern chicks

[Chicalina]

I much prefer the English Orpingtons to the American ones. I just LOVE how round and luxuriously fluffy they are! 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 was looking at the site too after I mentioned it to you! Soooo many colours! I realised that my hen was a blue partridge and the cockerel was a red.

Silver laced is also one of my favourite colour patterns. I just love lacing. I've been hankering after this for ages. Hoping one of my current lot of chicks is a silver sebright for this reason.

Sorry to hear about your boy. That's a weird coincidence. Maybe there is something genetically at fault with this colour variation?

I am rooting for your chicks being girls. They will be so beautiful.

 

[K0k0shka]

4 week update!

The chicks are more feathered out now, and I think I may have a second girl - wohoo! The Baby's shoulder feathers are coming in very evenly patterned and lighter, the way they did on the first girl (Pooh), and unlike the other chicks'. So I have my hopes on The Baby to join Pooh in the permanent flock.

Here's all of them together, enjoying their first trip outside:

Pooh has always been more red than the others, and I'm so glad she's shaping up to be a girl. I love the rich orange-red of this breed, and she seems to really have it:

Lemonade is definitely a boy. Aside from the big red comb and wattles and the thick legs, he's also big and very heavy. Interestingly, his breast is coming in patterned, but it's not the same kind of pattern as on Pooh's breast. Lemonade's has very big broad black areas on each feather, as opposed to Pooh's which just have a smaller black dot. Not sure if that matters... I guess we'll see how the others develop theirs.

Blinky, another very obvious boy. He's the slowest to feather out, but is otherwise big and getting heavy, too:

The Pretty One. This one confuses me, because it has SO much black all over - big solid areas of black breaking up the pattern - which is not a good sign, but at the same time, its comb is so very small and pale compared to Lemonade's or Blinky's... This one has suddenly become quite affectionate with me, taking Blinky's spot as my cuddle favorite, so I'm still hoping:

The Baby's feathering is starting to look more and more like Pooh's, and I'm gaining confidence that it's a girl:

Recap: my guess is Lemonade and Blinky are boys, Pooh and The Baby are girls, and The Pretty One is still unclear - I'd say girl based on the comb, but boy based on the feather pattern (keeping in mind that these aren't pure partridges so the pattern may be imperfect in its development).

What do you guys think?

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

I say the Baby and Pooh are pullets and others cockerels

 

[K0k0shka]

I say the Baby and Pooh are pullets and others cockerels

Thanks for your input! I'm still on the fence about Pretty. Getting conflicting opinions on him/her... I'll see how much longer I can wait before making the call and rehoming the presumed boys.

Here are some recent head shots, for comb comparisons:

Pooh:

Lemonade:

Blinky:

The Baby:

The Pretty One:

 

[K0k0shka]

Nice side by side shot for comparison - Lemonade on the left I’m sure is male, Baby at the bottom I’m sure is female, and Pretty in the back is looking like a female if you look at it standing next to both a male and a female...

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

Nice side by side shot for comparison - Lemonade on the left I’m sure is male, Baby at the bottom I’m sure is female, and Pretty in the back is looking like a female if you look at it standing next to both a male and a female...

If it's partridge colored, he would definitely be a male. I couldn't tell you if he's mixed varieties like you said so perhaps there could be more variance. I would say cockerel knowing the variety

 

[K0k0shka]

If it's partridge colored, he would definitely be a male. I couldn't tell you if he's mixed varieties like you said so perhaps there could be more variance. I would say cockerel knowing the variety

Expecting it to follow the breed standard is the only reason I doubt this chick, otherwise it looks very female to me. But I don’t think I can trust it to follow the partridge pattern reliably, because of the context. I know somebody who got partridge orp eggs from the same breeder this spring, just a couple of weeks before I did, and they ended up with a very dark chick like this which still turned out female... I was really hoping the pattern would make sexing easier, but so far it has only made it more confusing (again, because these aren’t pure, so maybe my whole experiment is pointless...)

 

[Chicalina]

I was reading recently about the colour stripes on their backs. If there are 3 colours, eg black, brown and sandy, then it is a girl. If only 2 colours, it's a boy.

This confuses me as I have a chipmunk chick with 3 colour stripes (girl), a smudged head dot not a clean triangle (boy), and short broken eyeliner (boy).

 

[K0k0shka]

I was reading recently about the colour stripes on their backs. If there are 3 colours, eg black, brown and sandy, then it is a girl. If only 2 colours, it's a boy.

This confuses me as I have a chipmunk chick with 3 colour stripes (girl), a smudged head dot not a clean triangle (boy), and short broken eyeliner (boy).

Ooh, very interesting! I didn't know that. I just looked at some pictures of their backs and the opposite seems to be the case with my chicks The boys seem to be more high contrast with more colors, while the girls seem to be low contrast and with only two colors...

Here's an example:

The one with the big comb is Lemonade. He has black and red on his feathers, but also has light sandy tips on them. The small one in my hand is Baby, which at this point I'm certain is a girl. She only has black and light brown and looks less contrasting and more uniform. And then there's the confusing dark one...

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

Expecting it to follow the breed standard is the only reason I doubt this chick, otherwise it looks very female to me. But I don’t think I can trust it to follow the partridge pattern reliably, because of the context. I know somebody who got partridge orp eggs from the same breeder this spring, just a couple of weeks before I did, and they ended up with a very dark chick like this which still turned out female... I was really hoping the pattern would make sexing easier, but so far it has only made it more confusing (again, because these aren’t pure, so maybe my whole experiment is pointless...)

Oh okay! In that case I am very curious! Definitely keep us updated!!