Omlet Smart Autodoor - New in box

[honorandkit]

How young can a bird be sexed? (please don't laugh at me if this is a dumb question )

 

Our littlie, Mimi, is 8 weeks old.

When we went to see birds at another supplier, he said he wouldn't be homing speckelds until they were a bit older, "otherwise, a few weeks from now, you'll be telling me you've got a cockerel".

 

As we got our birds from an authorised Black rock agent, I just "assumed" they wouldn't give us a cockerel without telling us...

[meezers]

It depends on the breed, some are easy, some are almost impossible! I shoyld think your supplier would take the bird back if it turned out to be a cockerel.

I'm sure if you post some pictures, the resident experts on here would be able to tell you what it is.

[honorandkit]

I'll try to get a decent picture of "her".

 

If I'm honest, it's not that I don't think the supplier wouldn't take her back, so much as she's my 4 year old son's and he's already very attached to her. I'm not sure I could bear to send her back to be dispatched.

[tom123]

There is no such thing as Black Rock cockerel so if she is from an authorised agent then it wont be possible to get a boy

[honorandkit]

Yay!!!! I think I love you, Tom!

I did wonder that - because the agent (who is registered for Black Rocks -I checked with the breeders in Scotland) told us they go very quickly at 8 weeks, so it seemed odd that he would do that, knowing that half of them *could* be returned.

I also remembered another chicken dealer telling me that certain hybrids are only female.

 

I've been going though worst-case scenarios today - Mimi is quite the sweetest of all our girls and I can't imagine not having her now.

[Redwing]

There will have been boys, they should have been obvious (usually by colour or pattern) on day one and culled

 

No breed of chicken hatches only females

 

There is a possibility with any hybrid that the identification may not be clear and one will slip through the net

[honorandkit]

Now I'm confused.

I *think* I was told it was something to do with dominant genes or colourways or something. (I didn't understand it then, and I understand it even less now).

 

I know, for example, in cats, gingers are virtually always toms, tortoiseshells are female, some white cats are deaf etc, so I just assumed that it was the same with Black Rocks.

 

I guess what really matters is that she's come from a proper agent, so she IS a she!

[Redwing]

I am not sure about Black Rocks in particular but with most hybrids a 'gold' gene parent and a 'silver' gene parent are involved

 

Chicks hatch amber if they are girls and yellow if they are boys (this is called sex linking)

 

I would imagine something similar happens for Black Rocks

 

The problems come however when the colour of a chick isnt clear!

 

So its extremely unlikely but not impossible that a boy will slip through

[tom123]

Sorry didn't put that very well. Black Rocks are a Hybrid that has been bred for many years using may different strains of pure breeds. It is a sex linked hybrid meaning you can tell the sex at hatch. The Black Rock cockerels are a completely different colour which is why I said you can't get a Black Rock cockerel confused with a hen. They are very obviously different.