What is a sapphire gem?

[renk777]

These are supposed to be simple sex links.
Females non barred and males barred.
Mind sharing pics of the ones you think are males but not barred?

Going to post some pics in a sec. Not the best as my SGs are in my attic and they wanted to eat haha Give me a moment....

 

[renk777]

I'm starting to wonder and be worried about the barring. I noticed today that a good number of my chicks have some variation or barring. I really hope they didn't send me a bunch of boys when we ordered girls. The majority of the chicks are for other people too . Don't mind what we think are t he cuckoo marans in the pictures. They are meant to be barred

Compared to mine, those all look like females

 

[renk777]

Alright...here goes Roo #1...assuming they all hatched on 2/12...they shipped on 02/13. He's such a sweetheart...already dreading the fact that he's probably headed for the freezer as we don't need any more roos But we hope to move soon and homestead so I'd like to think that maybe we'll find a way to keep him on! Look how he posed to show you all his wattles. He must be very proud! LOL

 

[renk777]

Roo #2 He's even more mellow than his brother. He sits at my desk when I work <3

 

[renk777]

Pullet

#1 This is my son's favorite. She was the darkest we received. Both her body feathers (deep slate) and head (noticeably black). She only had a little yellow under chin...no markings around eyes.

 

[renk777]

This is another girl....she was lighter grey when she arrived with darker grey on head and some light marking around eyes. Most of the yellow around eyes is gone now but she's one of our medium grey girls. I only got one good photo. She's a mover! Haha

 

[renk777]

This one is another pullet that had minimal light markings around eyes that have since disappeared . She looked a lot like the other commenter's suspected females though her head was a bit blacker. Of note, all of these girls also had the dark barring/striping on wings as is evident in the other commenter's pics of chicks

 

[renk777]

This girl was another one of our lighter girls but still had slightly darker coloration on head than roos. She had a lot of yellow markings around eyes and the lightest beak of the girls...though it still had some dark spots unlike the roos that have completely light beaks

 

[renk777]

Last one. ..our lightest pullet...had the most yellow on head around eyes. I could post the rest but figure these are enough to give you an idea of what they look like this far along I'm also including 2 pics of 2 pullets I took while at my desk a week or so ago and I'm including one of them from when they first arrived since you can see the difference in grey between the one roo up front and the girls....

 

[renk777]

Note..the pic of them in the box...obviously the little chick up front is one of the roos...the little black head to his left is the 1st pullet I posted...my son's favorite. She looked like a penguin...you can see how dark she is. The one directly above him is the one we call one-spot for now because she has one spot on the left side of her beak and we'd kind of like to wait to name them. She's the second to last one I posted. And the chic in the far upper right corner is the last one I posted so that you can get an idea of what they looked like on arrival compared to now As I've said before, based on what I received, the 2 silvery grey chicks with no contrast between heads and body and no dark markings on legs are roos. The rest, all varied from medium to dark grey with varying degrees of contrast between head and body and varying and inconsistent light markings around eyes, and dark markings on beak and legs....all pullets. When they were just starting to feather out, it appeared both males and females had a striped pattern on the wings. I'm new to chickens so I don't know if that's an indication of barring down the road but my girls and boys both had it. So I don't think that's the indication for barring. I believe I read somewhere that barred birds have a white spot on their head when little? But my roos did not. So I'm at a loss. If I were to walk into a TSC tomorrow to pick out SG chicks on my own, if I was looking for pullets, I'd stay away from any light grey birds with no contrast between head and body, and that had light beaks and legs....