The Buckeye Thread

[CanadianBuckeye]

I am very pleased with the second group of Buckeye and Dark Cornish chicks. I culled one Cornish for being too aggressive to the other chicks very early on, and one Buckeye chick at around 3 weeks for already attacking me when I tried to pick him up (repeated attempts to go for me! So long!). The rest of them are very sweet and growing nicely. Looks like two nice cockerels, two good pullets and a slow feathering one I am waiting to see, the feathering is slow, which I will cull if it's a rooster. I was hoping to start out with a larger flock of Buckeyes, but there's next year. I have one good pullet from the other group. Still waiting to see how the rooster from that group will finish. I am hoping well because he's such a nice boy! Never fights and picks up things to give to the hens. He's crowing nicely too and I think the white is disappearing from his wattles.

 

[hellbender]

Hellbender, if you caponize a a rooster late that has adult feathers, will he revert to hen feathers in future moults?

No, not that I've noticed. I haven't really caponized a bunch of older birds because of the degree of difficulty. I'm going to do these that I have now for my daughter to get some practice on difficuld jobs.

One thing everyone generally notices is the feathers of capons growing much longer and sometimes frizzy looking, at least That's the best way I can describe them.

 

[bbhorsefly]

I have two Buckeyes! They are supposed to be a couple weeks old. I'm wondering if the comb difference already between the two is an indication of gender? The smaller, darker, bigger comb, also has a more developed tail. Does any of this mean anything? I just started with chickens about a month ago, and these are my first and only Buckeye.

Thanks for any insight you pros can offer!

So the boy from this pair continued to redden and his comb continued to grow. Then he was lost in an unfortunate incident a few weeks after these pictures. The "girl" kept a tiny pale comb until just last week. "Her" black patches had a bit of green sheen. But she looked like most of the pictures I have seen of Buckeye pullets. I went Saturday and took all my unneeded cockerels to a sale. Within days, "her" comb seemed to grow and pink up a bit. Over this past week, her tail has really filled in, becoming more and more green.

Her neck feathers have a sheen...and they look really narrow...um....

I just picked her up and spread her wing feathers and low and behold SADDLE feathers!

Sheesh! Hahaha!

 

[hellbender]

So the boy from this pair continued to redden and his comb continued to grow. Then he was lost in an unfortunate incident a few weeks after these pictures. The "girl" kept a tiny pale comb until just last week. "Her" black patches had a bit of green sheen. But she looked like most of the pictures I have seen of Buckeye pullets. I went Saturday and took all my unneeded cockerels to a sale. Within days, "her" comb seemed to grow and pink up a bit. Over this past week, her tail has really filled in, becoming more and more green.


Her neck feathers have a sheen...and they look really narrow...um....

I just picked her up and spread her wing feathers and low and behold SADDLE feathers!


Sheesh! Hahaha!

I'm no pro but from my experience, at 2 weeks, cockerels frequently have very short tail feathers regardless of any size or color of combs.

 

[Minniechickmama]

The method that I have used for about 5 years now to sex young chicks (about a week to two weeks old) is with how the feathers are growing in, and I have been nearly 100% correct in doing it this way. Look at the shape of how the wings are growing in. The pullets grow in a sideways teardrop shape, while the cockerels are more blocky shaped with the primaries poking out on the bottom of the wing. Like these:


This one is a cockerel, notice one row of feathers with the primaries poking out along the bottom. You have to let them rest or stand relaxed to see this.


This one is the pullet. They are the same age, same hatch. Notice how she has four rows of feathers already and the primaries fold under as they would when they are mature.

I don't go by combs much except between 2-3 months when they are otherwise hard to distinguish. Some pullets can have big combs, some cockerels have small ones for quite some time.

bbhorsefly - I suspect that cockerel was low on the pecking order. Many times when you have much more dominant males, the more submissive ones will not get those red combs and wattles, even male feathers that come in quite as quickly or noticeable. I believe there is hormonal supression going on to cause that. But once the more dominant males are out of the picture, the others will bloom, so to speak. I had a BLRWyandotte pair of males I used in a breeding pen a few years ago. I knew the non-dominant was a male, but he got to what you would expect at about 5-6 month feathering and stopped over winter. When it finally hit the beginning of breeding season and days started getting noticeably longer (about February here), he suddenly changed and got red and feathers popped out where they weren't before and the comb and wattles grew much bigger. This happened in about a weeks time that he went from being the lesser rooster to, "Watch out ladies, here I come!" I had read this can happen before this so I didn't cull him believing that he would come into his own in time. He was a beautiful rooster, but the other one still kicked his butt on occasion.

I have a few wimps out here right now that I think I just need to pull them out from the aggressive males who want to use them as their whipping boys. I hate those cockerels who are between 5-8/9 months, they are jerks.

 

[stryker]

UGH!!!!! I was doing it backwards! I guess that is why I have picked 15 and got 100% males.

 

[Minniechickmama]

UGH!!!!! I was doing it backwards! I guess that is why I have picked 15 and got 100% males.

If you are culling chicks and you got that wrong, OUCH!!!! I still don't cull until they are much older and show me what they got, unless what they got is obvious faults that I refuse to breed. Better luck next year, you have some better stock to work with now

 

[stryker]

Yes I do have better stock! I figured that I can try out some pressure cooked roo for Christmas.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

No, not that I've noticed. I haven't really caponized a bunch of older birds because of the degree of difficulty. I'm going to do these that I have now for my daughter to get some practice on difficuld jobs.

One thing everyone generally notices is the feathers of capons growing much longer and sometimes frizzy looking, at least That's the best way I can describe them.

Thanks Hellbender.

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Thanks for posting the pictures MCM, I read how you sexed young chicks in an earlier posts but wasn't sure what you meant. I will try this next time and see how it works for me. So is this difference in shape just the difference between slower feathering males, and faster females? Do the females ever look like the males, with the primaries poking out, when they are younger than 1-3 weeks?

Stryker, bummer about the 100% cockerels, but at least you know how to identify them next time!