WE NEED HELP

[gcwpapillon]

Our family order chicks this year, meat and egg, and our parents allowed us to order a few bantams, well the hatchery was great and sent us a lot extra for warmth so now we hav 25, give or take bantams:|...we're going to give some to our friends but we want to make sure that we keep a few hens...they are a month and a half old, we don't know the breeds of most of them, we have 6 silkies we know of and the others are a mystery so, any tips on sexing them? Can you tell where the spur will grow on chicks this young? Please Help:/!

 

[gcwpapillon]

Oh, some of the chicks have oh...shoot i forget the name....the red things on them, but that doesn't help cause our friend has hens with them....

 

[BeckyLa]

Welcome to BYC!!!

With my Old English Game Bantams (oegb's), they are usually around 2-2 1/2 months old before I can tell the sexes. The males combs will begin turning redder and waddles begin to grow. Also, the males I've seen in this breed are usually more colorful and the girls are more bland in color. I know absolutely nothing about Silkies, only oegb's. I'd give them another month or so.

 

[gcwpapillon]

thanks......our friends are coming sometime this week to pick up the chicks...

 

[eggchel]

The silkies will be difficult to sex until they are older.
If some of the birds have red in their combs at this age, then they are probably male. The females combs turn red just before they start to lay, so it is much too early for them to get color. Keep the birds that have no color in their combs.

chel

 

[marie_martin]

You could post pictures of your bantams so someone could try to help you better. Some bantams show early signs of being a roo, at least to me anyway. But it just depends on what breed they are. I had some OEGB's and it seemed that they started to have larger combs that turned red in no time (the roos) so they were relatively easy to tell? Maybe I just guessed lucky??? Or maybe I spend too much time in that chicken yard looking at beaks, combs, etc.??????

Good luck.

Marie

 

[silkiechicken]

At 6 weeks, that is kind of hard on some breeds. Anyone with any red on their combs now, is going to be a roo. So get rid of the big combed buggers. As for silkies... those need to be a few months old first....

 

[speckledhen]

One thing you could look for at that age is thicker legs on the cockerels. Usually, they just look much more substantial than on pullets.