Poorly chicken

[UKMARCH]

Hi, this is only my second hatch so I'm not very experienced at this and would like to sort out the males sooner rather than later so can anyone confirm whether I'm right in thinking these are all cockerels? They are 5 1/2 weeks and are supposed to be copper black x Legbars although two eggs were pale and hatched out to what look like buff Orps, I think these are male also as they have small combs but they are very pink and are aggressive, thanks for looking.

 

 

Male 1

 

Male 2

 

Male 3

 

Male 3 and hopeful pullet

 

Buff Orps

[miller30]

Hi I can see 3 boys and one pullet is it possible for a better pic of the ones that look like buffs leanne

[Egluntyne]

3 definite cockerels and one definite pullet. Can't tell much about the buff from the picture.

[UKMARCH]

Thanks very much I wanted to remove the boys as family are looking after them for a few days and want everything to go smoothly. The buffs have drawn blood on two occasions on a different male wattle area so this makes me think they are cockerels along with their pink combs this doesn't show too well on the photos and they have been jumping on the other chicks from as soon as they could get about without falling over they are definitely quite clumsy. I'll keep them for a bit and see what happens they all seem fine at the moment.

 

 

Not sure if you can see the pink comb in comparison with the speckled sussex who I'm not sure about either yet!

[Egluntyne]

If they are 5 1/2 weeks, then I'd hazard a guess that these are cockerels too.

[miller30]

Hi yes I would agree these look like boys too sometimes when you have a few boys in together some can mature at a slower rate hence why they don't have huge comb and wattles but I would wait a couple of weeks to be positive if your doing anything drastic like culling leanne

[UKMARCH]

Hello, to update I removed the obvious males and all was well while we were away and now they are 8 weeks. The buffs have really red combs although still small, I'm still thinking males but no female buffs to compare with. I've taken some photos they're not great and it was bright so didn't come out too well. Any ideas?

 

Group shot to try to compare

Olive egger just because its cute!

 

I'm still not sure about the speckled sussex it doesn't look particularly male as yet but does have a lot of white on the chest I'll try and take a side photo when would the male feathers be obvious?

[jameslcfc]

How can you tell from the pics whos male? I only know how to see by how they stand and act?

[Egluntyne]

Combs and their hackle and saddle feathers give the game away.

[UKMARCH]

Hi, as it was our first time hatching I wasn't confident and the first time grew them on for longer and 4/5 were male. The second around 50% were male but if you look at the third picture with the two chicks the one on the left with the large comb was the male and the one on the right was a pullet and she now lays olive eggs. They also were more confident as chicks and did challenge each other from an early age. The pullets didn't get red combs until much later. The legbar x marans were easy to tell because of the large combs but the speckled sussex was harder but that may be because I only had one so nothing to compare it to. Some can be sexed by colour at hatch like the welsummers we had and this turned out to be correct apart from one which was indistinct. I think it must get easier the more times you hatch. I would have liked to hatch again this year but as all of last years chicks are laying the final two started last week I have more than enough eggs and will wait until next year when some of the older girls aren't as productive.