What gender are our BOs and RIRs

[nourahm]

Our BOs are 17 weeks and RIR 15 weeks old...is there anyway to tell by these pictures which of these might be roos?...I see no sickle shaped feathers or pointed feathers on any of them and they ones that do have a sort of spur type thing really looks like classic pimples, but I'm sure I couldn't have gotten all females in 3 different sets of straight runs...I mean it's possible, but I wouldn't count on it! By the way, at this point we've gotten no eggs or crowing from anyone and there is no such thing as an asexual chicken, at least not 3 different batches of a total of 30 asexual chickens. Either I'm not seeing what I should be looking at Or maybe they are CIA mind controlled robot chickens?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[billfields]

Looks like a rooster in that first photo.

 

[crossgirl]

In the first picture, the one buff with the big comb is probably a rooster because it's different from the other ones. The red with the comb in the first picture looks different from the other one red, too, so I'd go with roo. I have RIR that are 16 weeks and look like yours with the comb. I was hoping they were girls. *sigh*

 

[teeville5]

I'm going to throw in my input which is probably going to make this a tad more confusing on guessing the genders.

The BO in the middle of the 1st photo could possibly be a roo, however, I'm kind of thinking not. Nothing except for the larger comb is screaming roo to me. That goes for the RIR in that photo as well.
Now for the twist. None of the RIRs have a comb/wattle that even comes close to my 17 week old RIR roo. His are about 3-4x the size of yours. The BOs don't either, but as I don't have a BO roo, I cannot really compare. However, of my 18 17week old pullets (RIR, BR, NH), I have at least 8 that look like your suspect roos. The rest all have varying degrees of comb/wattle like the BO laying down in the 1st photo all the way down to still yellowish like the RIR in the 2nd photo. They are 100% all pullets. I have read that right before they start laying, the pullets comb/wattles grow and get very red. That said, with the age of your chickens and how I'm comparing them to mine, I say you are really good at picking out pullets.

But alas, only an egg or crow will tell.

Good luck.

 

[pepperlady]

The RIR in the first pic is a roo. I don't know about any of the other breeds, but that one is the only RIR in your pics that I think is a roo. He looks just like mine, only bigger

 

[teeville5]

I thought I would add some pics of my Red for comparison. In the 1st photo he is @13 weeks old. For the 2nd photo, I just went out and got a head shot of him and he is 17 weeks old.

All chickens are not created equal, though, so again, an egg or a crow will tell.

 

[LD Jackson]

Are all of the BOs the same age? If so, there is a lot of difference between the big one in the middle of the first picture and the rest of them. I would have to say it is a rooster.

 

[turtlebird]

that big BO fell'er in the center of the first pic is a roo
Two BOs in the center of the second pic look rather roo-ish (fellow with the blurry head and the one right in front of him)
the RIR just to the right of a suspect BO roo in the center of the 3rd pic looks like a roo (RIRs are only 15 weeks, right?)
Well, there are my two cents! I love my BOs and RIRs. Nice looking birds.
I didn't get any eggs until 20-21 weeks on those two breeds.

 

[nourahm]

Thanks for all of your help...

You know we did "feather sex them" and according to the primary and covert wing patterns, we think we only have 1 BO roo and 18 females. The gentlemen whe bought them from, let us pick which ones we wanted. Same with our RIRs. The covert wings were all shorter creating the long-short-long-short wing patterns of the female, except, a whole new dynamic was thrown in that only some breeds can be feather-sexed and then adding to that the dynamic of even breeds that could be feather-sexed might not be true to feather-sexing because genetics could cause some males to have the same wing patterns as females. So, this is where it all got confusing. Even with our RIRs, they say 93% of the ones with head stripes are female, but 6% of the head striped ones could be male so it's just really all confusing at this point. I can say that that BO that is Roo suspect to everyone else, we also have suspected him to be roo since about 7 weeks old and the RIRs we think we have 3 roos. So, we really appreciate everyone's help. Ok, so clarification is still needed. When I am looking for saddle feathers, I think saddle = on the back, like where a horse's saddle would go in the horse. And sickle feathers are those sickle-shaped feathers that grow out of the top of the tail....Ok, I'm not seeing any of these. Is it the feathers themselves that are supposed to be pointed or are a group of feathers grow into a pointed shape? I've been trying to find examples to go by, but I either seen very masculine roosters or very feminine hens. Mine seem to not really fall into a purely masculine or feminine category...

This was the first day we got our Buffs...this was literally 30 secs after I changed their purple paper, so excuse the poos.

 

[nourahm]

Thanks...

Yes all the RIRs are 15 weeks from same brood

All the BOs are 17 weeks from same brood

yep, like 3 of them (BOs) were always much bigger than the rest of the BOs even when we got them at 1 day after hatching.

All the RIRs seem to have always been the same size.

@teeville & pepperlady, nice chickens yourself!