Dark Cornish Chick Gender

[D_Mom549]

I ordered five Dark Cornish roo chicks from MMH and they gave me one free (you'd think they wanted to get rid of roos or something!) so I ended up with six. Over the past week, five of them have really shot up; their combs are getting big, along with their legs, and they're starting to feather out more. One of them however, still has barely any tail feathers, a tiny comb and normal baby chick legs. The feathers growing in on it's shoulders are also a totally different color from the other five. I'm wondering if #6 is a girl. I know hatchery stock is generally terrible so I thought it could also just be a runty poorly colored boy. They're only 3 weeks old, but I'd love to know so I could name it! Most of these DC roos are going to go to freezer camp.


One of the boys for comparison


A top view of what I think is the female. It also has the coolest head markings. It looks like some one drew them on!


The shoulders and wings.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

 

[chickened]

With DC the darker ones are usually girls and the lighter ones boys. I had a runt once and it turned out to be a rooster.

 

[D_Mom549]

Well that doesn't sound good. Is color a better indicator of sex or other things like comb development and feathering out? I'd also just like to know for future reference. I absolutely love these DC babies and might have to get more

 

[chickened]

Now bear in mind these are my observations on the ones I have raised. The color difference is usually reliable 99% of the time. They have pea combs so the roosters will get a dab of red before the hens usALLY AT 6 TO 8 WEEKS. The feathers as the grow out can almost be decieving as they begin to resemble each other but overall the roosters will always be larger framed.

 

[babyrnlc]

I am not good at any of this, but I hope you chick is a girl! I have a dark cornish hen and she is the best egg layer! We have had her a month. She layed every day but two. The first time she missed a day, a few days later she gave us 2 in one day! She did not lay day before yesterday, so I figure she is due for two in the next couple of days lol

My friend said she knows she is a meat bird and is trying to impress me so I wont eat her!

 

[D_Mom549]

babyrnlc: I hope it's a girl too! If it's a boy it will definitely get eaten, it's tiny compared to the other birds! I'd love to potentially get that many eggs out of her, I could hatch more babies that way! I wish my other girls laid that well, we've been getting six a day out of 14 cause everyone is molting.

chickened: Thanks for responding! Did you have hatchery Cornish? If yours were better quality that would probably make a difference. I don't expect much from these chicks. I had also heard that some hatcheries mix their Cornish with other things so that very well could have happened. I was mostly looking to name one so I don't sit looking at them thinking: "Nugget, Pot Pie, Rotisserie, Coq Au Vin...."

 

[chickened]

Your welcome, they were hatchery originally and I hatched and improved from them with show quality. The show quality has put some odd colors in the mix I will say. f I can get it to happen I will try to post some pictures of some odd colors from my SQ roo over a hatchery hen.
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[D_Mom549]

That would be great! There aren't enough pics of DC out there.