Telling Gender by Feather Development

[Anianna]

Several BYCers have indicated that you can sometimes guess gender early on by feather development. Roos tend to feather more slowly. Here are some pictures I think may demonstrate this in chicks that are about a week old.

Most of my Delawares have wing feathers about this length:

Except for this one, which I think is probably a roo:

It's a little easier to see in pictures with the RIRs. Most of my RIRs have feathers about this long:

Except this one, which I think is a roo:

What do you guys and gals think? When combs and wattles come in, I will post again to see how accurate this is.

 

[galanie]

It has been stated with some authority that this only works if they are bred for it: The roo is slow feathering, etc. pdsavage knows the exact conditions. It has a more than 50% chance of being correct though, in my opinion. You just can't bank on it. I have a roo right now that feathered out the fastest of my five chicks. At 6 weeks it has the biggest, reddest comb and waddles of the bunch! Course none have crowed or laid an egg yet, but I'm pretty sure it's a roo.

I also have a hen in the same batch that feathered out just as slow as the known roos did (except the one mentioned above). But 3 of the 5 are true to form, roos feathering last. You can see pics of the birds I'm talking about in this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=494780

I will be interested to see who turns out to be what though! Be sure to mark your roos too. I didn't mark the 3 I thought were roos when I looked at 2 days of age, but I'm pretty sure I still know which they were. Just not positive.

 

[snazzyboots]

on my last hatch it seemed to be pretty accurate with the feathers. i sold most of them but the one i kept i'm pretty sure is a girl. i have more hatching soon so i am very curious to see how it goes this time.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

JMHO

We only have a few breeds this works on and by far the best indicator on ours is the tail feathers. 90% of the time the pullets will grow tailfeathers before the cockrells do on these breeds.

Wing feather sexing will only work, as another poster stated, if that strain has been breed to feather sex.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I agree with the above poster. Can't wait to see your results!

 

[Anianna]

Thanks everybody. This is a fun learning experience. I will take a closer look at tail feathers, which are just coming in on some of my babies.

What is the best method of marking these guys? I would like to color-code the short wing developers and the more stunted tail developers and see how it all turns out.

 

[galanie]

Usually people use leg bands. You can get some colored velcro bands that they sell for tying up cords into bundles, those work great. Or zipties, they work nicely too. One size fits all on both options and you don't have to worry about what size or end up buying 50 like you do with regular leg bands.

 

[hoppy]

Quote:
interesting that you say this:
But 3 of the 5 are true to form, roos feathering last

this is pretty much saying you have a 50% 50% chance, 3 out of 5.
I find that orpingtons roos feather in slower, wyandottes feather in the same male/female.

 

[Anianna]

Apparently, feather development is not a good indicator. When I posted those pics, I thought I had 9 pullets and 2 roos. Now that they are getting combs, I believe I have 2 hens and 9 roos. The short-winged RIR is a roo, but so are all but one of his RIR siblings. The short-winged Delaware is a hen and the other four are all roos.


Most of my RIRs now look like this:

with one lonely girly that looks like this:

 

[cmom]

Feather sexing became possible in 1969 after several years of genetic research by the Tegels Poultry Breeding Company. This method used to determine the sex of newly hatched chicks is only possible if a female from a slow-feathering breed is crossed with a male from a fast-feathering breed. The sex of the chicks produced from this cross can be determined during the first 48 hours after hatching by looking at the primary and secondary feathers located on the chick's wings. The primary feathers will be noticeably longer than the secondary feathers on a female chick. On a male, the primary and secondary feathers are the same length.

Because the males' feather grow slower, they will be shorter and of equal length (see Figure 1). Females' feathers will be not only longer but some feathers will be much longer than the others (sort of a row of long and a row of short feathers--see Figure 2).

Figure 1.
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----------- male

Figure 2.
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------------- female