Silver Laced Wyandotte - mostly white chick vs mostly black chick?

[sayga]

My sister and I hatched 3 Silver Laced Wyandottes. They are 4 weeks old today. I know it's too early to tell for sure whether they are male or female, but I've never had a Silver Laced Wyandotte before, and I'm curious. We're here to learn, right?

I ended up with 2 black-with-white chicks and 1 mostly-white-with black one. Is this a sex-linked coloration? Just natural variety? They were all black with grey when they hatched and looked mostly the same until recently. The whiter one is really mostly white with just a little black! The black two are his opposites.

I'm tempted to think the white one is male and the black ones are female. Is there any basis for this hunch?

 

[Cyan Night]

I think you're correct with your guess. I've never had SLWs either, but I've heard that patchy lacing usually means male. Ones with more evenly distributed lace are probably the female ones. Good luck with them!

 

[sayga]

They are 8 weeks in the first photo and 9 in the second. They are 10 weeks tomorrow. The 2 black ones still look strikingly different than the mostly-white one, but all their combs/wattles look the same. They are all getting a little pink, but not nearly as pink/red as our 2 roosters of the same age (a barred rock and a cream legbar). So, I'm guessing they are all 3 pullets.

I named them Cruella, Ursula and Maleficent, because they are antisocial and a bit mean. I find the way they scream when I pick them up really obnoxious. Plus, they're always escaping the chicken yard and then will not come near me so I can let them back through the gate. They'll just run up and down the fence line crying. Little sillies. I feel better about them now that I've acknowledged their evil ways by giving them evil names. It gets funnier that they are always being naughty when I expect nothing else from them.