Unscientific sexing of Easter Eggers

[Chickenlady17]

So please bear in mind that it is true you cannot "sex" chickens unless you vent and even then by the time you can tell through venting you probably have a good idea which ones are Roos. Bearing that in mind, I hav successfully guessed 4 roosters within 3 weeks of hatching. It's probably dumb luck but I also know how impatient we get and thought I'd post here how I correctly identified that one of my EE would be a Roo.

First off, my husband went with me and picked out one chick. It was the ugliest chick I had ever seen. I even called him "ugly cuss" for the first month. Within a week of hatching he started exhibiting Roo behavior (my RIR Roos did not do this): he would look up when I was changing food and water and I swear he would scowl at me before herding the other chicks into a corner as far from my hands at possible. As the weeks went on his body remained ugly in color ( think of a mangy coyote) but his wings took on an orange tint. With my RIR the roosters immediately grew larger combs than the hens but this has not been the case with my EE. Below are a few pics and the young Roo is in each picture based on my cruel description I think you can find him.

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I will post a picture of him full grown in a few minutes

 

[Chickenlady17]

 

[Chickenlady17]

 

[Chickenlady17]

Here he is just before he completely feathered out

 

[Chickenlady17]

And here he is in all his glory. It was a bit humid in the coop today sorry about the quality of the pic. They really don't do him justic he's no ugly cuss now!

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[Chickenlady17]

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

So please bear in mind that it is true you cannot "sex" chickens unless you vent and even then by the time you can tell through venting you probably have a good idea which ones are Roos.

Congrats on your success -- however, I am curious where you got the idea expressed above? Venting is actually very accurate (when done by someone with the experience to interpret what is seen) and is done at hatch.

 

[Chickenlady17]

Interesting! I've heard from several people that venting occurs around 3-4 weeks and is only 50% accurate. However, I don't think we have too many professional venters around here so my closest expert is Larry the chicken man. He's very knowledgeable but obviously not as much as some in your neck of the woods