FOWL - NOT FOUL

Welcome to this place of poultry.

Chick Sexing Reference:.

It is very difficult to tell the sex of a young chicken. Some breeds are sex-linked (meaning the male and female chicks are hatched different colours), making the task of sexing easy. Other breeds, however, do not make things so easy for us. Some of these breeds can be sexed by comparing the rates of feather growth, and with others we cannot tell until the chicks mature and their obvious sexual characteristics are revealed (eg: males will start to grow large comb and wattles, long tail feathers and pointed hackle and saddle feathers, and will start to crow. Females will have short tails, rounded feathers, will not crow and will start to lay eggs).

The links below will lead you to a developmental record of the first eight weeks of the lives of 2 Barnevelder chicks, 2 Maran chicks, 2 Silver Campine chicks, 4 Cream Legbar chicks, and 1 Golden Campine chick (which I later discovered to be an Indian Game bird). The weight, tail length and primary wing feather length of each chick has been recorded at intervals throughout their first two months of life.

Hopefully this study will seve as a useful reference for other poultry keepers approaching the problem of sexing their chicks.

Barnevelders	Marans
Silver Campines	Indian Game

Cream Legbars: Pullets (females); Cockerels (males) - Cream Legbars are a sex-linked breed, which means that cockerels (males) and pullets (females) are hatched a different colour.

Back to Fowl NOT Foul Entry Page