When determining the gender of baby chicks....

[luvmychicknkids]

How accurate is it to go by the fact that females feather out faster than males? I have some approx. 1 week old babies. 5 of them are La Fleche...supposed to be one boy 4 girls. I picked the one I thought was male, based on personality, immediately and painted a green dot on his head. Now, he is the one with the shortest wing feathers...in fact the others are twice as long as his. So I am assuming I got it right? Also, with the others, I am pretty sure I have all females with the pullets, only one male in the bantams (which they won't sex so they are straight run) and I really think there may be one girl in the packing peanuts. Has anyone else had success with this method?

 

[gritsar]

It's one of the indicators I used and with absolutely no experience I got it right. Of course it could have been dumb luck. My baby roos looked very scrawny and still lacking in the feather dept. when my hens were almost feathered out.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Well, if that's true, then this means that both my ameraucana and my lakenvelder (single-chick hatches) are roos

They don't have hardly any feathers.

 

[luvmychicknkids]

Not necessarily.

How old are they? All chicks go through the not so attractive stage with few feathers. It is just that the boys get them slower.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I'd have to look to know for sure, but I believe they are like 4 weeks old? Might be more like 3 though. But I have nothing to compare them to, other than each other.

 

[luvmychicknkids]

Oh, I certainly wouldn't panic yet.

They are just right to get to the scraggly stage!!!

With nothing to compare them to, you have no way of knowing if their feathers are coming in faster or slower. It won't be long before there are more obvious signs.

 

[silkiechicken]

It would often be true IF the chicks could be feathers sexed as day olds, because in the parent strains, the roos were slow feathering, and the hens were fast feathering, and produce off spring with feather growth differences in the primary feathers. However, I don't know if it is a trait that can be 100% reliable even in feather sexable chicks.