Tail feathers to sex chicks?

[McGill]

How accurate is it to sex baby chicks by the presence or lack of a tail?

Around a week old, males are still just a fuzzy rump, and females begin to develop a bit of tail feathers. It gets more pronounced through week 4.

What's your opinion?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

How accurate is it to sex baby chicks by the presence or lack of a tail?

Around a week old, males are still just a fuzzy rump, and females begin to develop a bit of tail feathers. It gets more pronounced through week 4.

What's your opinion?

Only guaranteed to work if specifically bred for it. Any other time, you may as well flip a coin to pick out your pullets

 

[Galaxy_rules]

How accurate is it to sex baby chicks by the presence or lack of a tail?

Around a week old, males are still just a fuzzy rump, and females begin to develop a bit of tail feathers. It gets more pronounced through week 4.

What's your opinion?

Pretty accurate way to sex however sometimes it is wrong

 

[McGill]

Only guaranteed to work if specifically bred for it. Any other time, you may as well flip a coin to pick out your pullets

Which breeds are those, if you know off the top of your head

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Which breeds are those, if you know off the top of your head

Crossbreed. You need a fast feathering parent and a slow feathering parent, and it has to be the right sex for both. I believe fast male and slow female, but I don't know off the top of my head since I don't breed feather sexlinks

 

[rosemarythyme]

It's a possible indicator, especially if lumped together with other possible indicator, but not a reliable method by itself in most cases.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I have 3 Jersey Giant x RIR chicks. They are approximately two weeks apart, the older almost 4 weeks old. The older 2 showed vestigial tail feathers and wing feathers when they hatched. The third still doesn't show tail feathers after two weeks. But the older two (pretty sure at least 1 is a cockerell) are developing quickly in line with their mother's development and showing the start of RIR coloring (might be a beautiful mahogany when they get older) while the other (pretty sure she's a pullet) looks very much like her dad at 2 weeks. He showed very little tail development until about 6 weeks.

This picture is her dad at about 4 weeks.

These three chicks follow more of a genetic pattern than a gender pattern as far as the tail feathers go. If you take the standard guidance that pullets develop tail feathers faster, they seem to have reversed it.

I am uncertain as yet of the gender of the 3rd chick. One of the older two already has a visible comb at 4 weeks, while the other doesn't.