Can you tell if these Australorp chicks are girls or boys?

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NewChickenMom69

NewChickenMom69

Chirping
May 8, 2012
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I was so lucky to have a 6 out of 7 eggs hatch of Australorp chicks. I would like the thin out the flock as early as possible since we are not allowed to have rosters. I tried to vent sexing, we also looked at the wings and had doubts on several of the chicks. the chicks are now 12 days old. There are 4 chicks with brighter combs growing and no tail feathers yet and 2 with dull smaller combs and a full set of tail feathers. would the brighter comb chicks be roosters and the duller comb chicks be the hens or is it to early to tell? Looking forward to hear from anyone on their opinion. I posted pictures of two of the little ones..
 
Hi there - Australorps tend to be one of the easier chicks to sex using a combination of tail feathers and combs.

In my Australorp birds, the female chicks had much better developed tail feathers from about 3 weeks until 10 weeks, while the males had only stumpy short tails. The difference was very obvious.

Also, by 4 or 5 weeks the males combs will start to turn pink and start growing much faster than the females, whose combs will stay yellow and smaller much longer.

Here is a good link which covers this topic:

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/sexingchicks.html

This tail feather sexing approach doesn't work for all breeds - for example, in leghorns / leghorn crosses, the tails of both sexes seems to grow at a similar rate.

I hope this helps - Australorps are my favourite breed!
 
Thank you so much lvalley, that chart is great! I was looking more closely at the chicks and think I have 2 hens and 4 roo's, one roo I am still in question.. and could go either way.. I will probably wait one more week till I give the roo's to their new home. The 2 hens have much smaller gray combs and full tail feathers. The one rooster or hen has a much smaller yellow comb but not distinct tail feathers and not a tall stature.. Now looking back, more of the eggs were pointy too..
 

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