I recently had my 10 chicks hatch out. I have a friend who I will be giving 5 to. How do you feather sex them. I know there can be tricks by looking at the feathers on the wings. I figure I can send any roos her way! Second questions my 4 ducks are about 10-12 weeks old now. The 12 week old ones seem to be molting. Is that typical? Thank you : )
2 questions please!
They do have a juvenile molt--usually about 16 weeks although I've had them start it a few weeks sooner--so I think you're fine there.
Here is a thread with a slide show on feather-sexing--but the chicks have to have been bred for feather sexing--not all breeds or strains within a breed will do it.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/866091/
One thing I've noticed which seems pretty consistant is that the little roos tail feathers come in more slowly and are more squared off than the pullets. That, together with earlier comb development, can give you a good indication of which are likely to be roos--but nothing is perfect!
Some of our little roos got tail feathers early so that indicator didn't work on them. But the comb and waddle development is a good indicator. Roos will get larger combs that turn redder faster. Hens combs tend to stay more yellow orange longer. We have one little one that we knew was a roo pretty fast. He started getting the comb and waddles and he was more aggressive. We'd poke and wiggle our finger at him and he would stand up straight and try to fight us. He is now 10 weeks old and the comb and waddles are pretty good size and getting redder. We also noticed that the other two babies, that we are pretty sure are hens, don't seem to like to hang around him. He tends to wonder off more by himself and the other two stick together.