An update of chick 3. I do believe he is a roo, which is consistent with what TF and grownut thought. Definite reddening of the comb.
The Guess the Roo Game
Here is a close up of his head. At least I think it's a he.
Here's an updated chick 4. I think it may be a hen.
Here is her head. As a baby, she had no head spot. Almost totally black. I like her face markings.
This is chick 9. Grownut said roo. TF didn't say roo. I think maybe hen, if I am lucky.
head closeup on 9.
I may be late.. but My name is ZZsBabiez and I just flipped the bird 6 times!
i think when you flip one bird mulitple times it is called flipper abuse... ;-)
tf still standing on her roo predictions... [my soap box is smasehd LOL]
I have a different way of sexing chicks taught to me by a man who worked in a chicken house for 30 years and it involves flipping. I have done this many times and it has always been accurate.
Take a chick turn it over on its back hold its head between thumb and index finger kinda in that little circle it makes GENTLY PEOPLE or you can just hold it in your hand on its back.
Let it relax and be calm and when it is relaxed watch to see which legs it sticks out.sometimes when you turn them over you can see this immediately.
Roosters will stick out BOTH legs strait out and if its a hen she will stick out one of her legs about 99% of the time its the right leg and the other will stay drawn to her body i have tried this on chicks that i knew what they were and it was accurate to 98%.
That's a neat technique! I'll give it a try! I am not having much success with the bones technique because all of mine seem to be the same. I can fit my middle finger between the bones on all of them.
Do the chicks have to be a certain age for this to work, Harmony?
Yes they should be chicks of i would say ive tried at hatch and up to 3 weeks may be older i haven't done it in awhile because the sex of my birds does'nt really have and impact on what i do but i know people wanting layers do want to know the sex i haven't tried older i was taught on chicks less than a week old. But on the ones he showed me which there were 5 he said 2 roos and 3 hens he was wrong on only one it was 3 roo 3 hens that was 3 years ago don't know how i remembered all that. if you doubt them turn them over several times if you get the same result then its what it is hen/roo
Invaluable information--we should be making up a pamphlet with all the ways to tell roos from pullets--then they could test them all on MythBusters.
I
I'm jumping between threads and getting a little confused but yes we should check out all of them and see which works best. I believe the bone one is the one us pigeon/dove folks use to sex our birds.
I didn't know it worked on chickens?!?:
I just tried it on my week old chicks. I had definite results - some with 2 legs out, some just one leg out. I will try again tomorrow and compare results.
Good!!! mark the hens and you can watch and see if indeed they are hens keep me posted.