How to tell a chick’s sex – is it a pullet (female) or a cockerel (male)
You just bought straight run chicks from the farm store or hatched a bunch of your own chicks. Perhaps you are only allowed to keep females (NO roosters) in town. Or you only want egg laying hens. How do you tell their sex?
Is this chick a female or a male?
On a Wing and a Prayer
If you do not have a sex-linked chicken breed (where the females are a specific color), you will have to use deductive reasoning to tell the sex.
A fairly reliable way is to use the wing shape and the type of feathers.
On this 10 day old Brahma/Australorp mix, you can see the difference between the primary feathers – the longer ones near the tip of the wing, and the secondary feathers – the shorter ones closer to the chick’s body. A pullet (female) will have longer, more developed secondary feathers, whereas the cockerels (males) will have shorter, less developed secondary feathers.
I really thought that this Brahma above was a female, but the secondary feathers are suspiciously shorter. But it was the runt, hatched a couple days later than the rest.
Let’s look at some others from the same hatched batch, waiting a little longer to see if it gets easier.
Wing Shape at One Month
The difference becomes more striking at one month.
This Australorp has developed secondary feathers that are almost as long as the primary feathers. This one is very likely a pullet/female.
The Buff Orpington chick above has fairly symmetrical primary and secondary feathers in a convex pattern, a nice sloping curve. No “V” or notches. This is likely a pullet/female.
The beautiful Australorp/Brahma mix above has a beautiful curve to the feathers. I am glad that this is likely a female, because it is the only Australorp in a batch of Buff Orpingtons. It also has the Brahma feathers all the way down its legs, which is unique.
All of the above turned out to be the sex that we suspected.
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Sometimes you’re not sure
The chick above also has fairly symmetrical feathers, but there is a “V” between the primary and secondary feathers (although this could be from spreading them out farther). I originally though that this was a male because it had a strongly formed crown on its head. But it is probably a pullet/female. (Yes, it was a female).
Feather sexing chickens can be challenging and fun. If you are not in a hurry, wait and see how they turn out. If they are males, you can always eat them at 16 weeks, trade them to a friend, or sell them on FB or Craigslist.
My guesses on the 10 day chicks were consistent at one month.
But heads up: telling the sex of a chicken by its feathers fades after 2-3 generations.
According to Cackle Hatchery – What is Feather Sexing? Separating Fact from Myth, you can only use feather sexing technique for the 1st generation (the ones from the farm store or hatchery):
“A chick can be feather sexed only if its mother is slow feathering and its father is fast feathering. Furthermore, you can’t get feather sex chicks by mating a feather sex rooster to a feather sex hen. It works only for the first generation.”
“Slow feathering” and “fast feathering” is difficult to understand unless you are a hatchery. Basically, they have two separate flocks with specific wing traits and they cross them to get a specific result. The technique works more with broilers than with egg laying chickens. (That is why you still get up to 50% roosters in straight run chicks from the farm store).
The curved wing in a female is a trait selected for at the hatcheries. But when you hatch your own chicks out from those chickens, in the 2nd and 3rd generation the curved wing in females starts to fade and be not as clear. I have had good success to the 2nd generation (the farm store chickens crossed with my chickens). But mixed results by the 3rd generation.
Keep trying. And let me know your results.
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- The Backyard Forest Garden e-book
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