The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[justuschickens59]

Awwwwwwwwwww...look at that little baby. He is so, so tiny, but so, so cute. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the blue one looks like a cockerel. I see one of the blacks that could possibly be a cockerel. Can't tell about the others, though they look like pullets at this point. No idea what Skoche is yet, he is just too little to tell. Can yhou see a difference yet in wing feather development? What about tails? I can't see enough in the pictures to see this.

 

[cherylcohen]

Is there a definitive difference in wing development at one week old. I'll take pics of mine in a bit

 

[justuschickens59]

I don't know diddly about any other kind of chickens, but I normally can tell the sex in orps (at least in the BBS orps) by 2 weeks old - sometimes sooner. In a lot of cases, the wing feather development and tail is different between male/female. Feet and legs are also sometimes a good sign. I'm usually right about 98% of the time, however, they can fool you. I have 2 that are going on 4 weeks old and I still don't know what they are. One day girl, next day boy. LOL.

 

[cherylcohen]

Quote:
LOL cool I post pics in a bit - (hey don't feel bad about not being able to tell at 4 weeks - I just had an EE that fooled me till this morning when it crowed! and it is 4 MONTHS old)

 

[cherylcohen]

Looks to me like I have too many roosters...only 10 or 11 days old today

 

[joletabey]

Tell me again, longer feathers on the bottom of the wind equal males? I have no signs of tail feathers yet in anyone- and I think the four bigger ones are two weeks plus. If I can get DH to help me, I will try for pics like Cheryl's cuties.

 

[HenThymes]

Yes please tell, how do you feather sex again??

I have some lav chicks that are almost two weeks old and I can tell that a couple of them are already showing comb signs of being cockerel. Being able to work off feathers may give me a bit better jump of how many I may have of each.

 

[tazcat70]

My males seemed to take forever to get real feathers on their bottoms. It is like they used the energy to bulk up..then grow feathers.

I am amazed at how big they are. At 4 mos they are bigger than a lot of my other chickens. They are also twice as big as my BLRW that hatched at the same time.

 

[justuschickens59]

What I notice is that the girls develop longer feathers at the bottom of the wing first. They also tend not to have that little tuft for a tail that the boys get. It's hard for me to explain, I'm not good at explaining things. The girls will definitely feather in all over first, but that will take several weeks.

I'll see if I can find some pictures to post for examples.

 

[cherylcohen]

Quote:
Can you tell anything from the pics I just posted?