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Lindy Loo

Just how do you sex a chicken?

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Silly question I know but I am trying to work out the sex of my Araucana chicks (aged about 8 weeks) and also a white leghorn who is about 20 weeks old - she is supposed to be a hen but I have my doubts... she is a very big girl and her tail feathers at the base of the upright feathers are growing longer and more droopy by the day - just like a typical cockerel.

 

In both cases I have had a good look around the vent area and thought I would see some extra "bits and pieces" on any of the boys but I'm afraid to say they all looked the same to me!

 

Either it's good news and the 3 in question are all girls or I am missing something. Any advice would be welcome

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Hi there. I've read that Araucanas are very hard to sex by combs, wattles, feather growth etc. In fact on another poultry forum someone was finding them so hard to sex, at about 18 weeks I think, they were talking about culling them rather than wait any longer to sell them :shock: . It's probably way too early for that breed at 8 weeks.

I tried the 'blowing on the vent and looking for a bump inside' thing but the chicks all had the same bump :oops: .

Do you have a pic of the leghorn? - they have big combs and wattles anyway so I think it could be confusing with them - although at 20 weeks she would be crowing, or making a good attempt :D .

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Lindy Loo, we had EXACTLY the same problem with our Leghorn, she looked like a cockerel, carried herself like a cockerel, was completely different to our other girls, she did everything bar cock a doodle do and was noisy to boot. In the end she laid an egg but that's all that convinced us. Someone said when I asked the same question on here that there was a difference in the wing feathers but I can't remember what it was, sorry. Mind you, ours only laid 3 eggs then no more, no idea why, will eventually get round to ringing the breeder but have been snowed under recently. There's pictures of our Leghorn, Bertie, in my album you can see why we were confused!

 

Mrs Bertie

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Yes,, I think I'm going to have to wait to see if they start crowing!

 

Although I didn't choose to buy a cockerel having one is is not going to be a disaster. I know that if the leghorn proved to be a cockerel i could return it to the breeder but it has such a fab personality and the lavender Araucana I bought at the same time would be lost without it. They are like Bonnie & Clyde and stick together like glue.

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