Suspicious of this Amberlink (Cockerel?)

[MinervaELS]

Okay, now I've just found this on the Tractor Supply site:

The Amberlink males and females hatch with the same color feathers, so they are not color sex-able, but they can be wing sexed. The males have mainly red plumage with a white undercoat that shows through in some areas. The females are mainly white with tints of red or amber in their wing feathers.

So, all the chicks DO look the same and are sexed by wing feathers, but it's a pullet anyway because it is primarily white? Does that sound right?

 

[MinervaELS]

Chicken math I tell ya... Plain ole' chicken math.
But I wouldn't change it for a thang.

I'm almost afraid to ask... what is chicken math?

 

[The Angry Hen]

I'm almost afraid to ask... what is chicken math?

It is something that is still being figured out by experts. When it comes to breeding, aggressiveness, sexing, pecking order, molting. Almost everything that has mysteries in the adventure of chicken keeping. But it's one thing that stays a mystery. As stressful as it can get? It's something every chicken keeper goes through. But we still have chickens.

 

[AlleysChicks]

Wait, really? Now I'm even more confused! This is what I had read originally (on here), but then I found a bunch of more recent BYC threads insisting that amberlinks were sexed by feathers when they were a few days old and not by color. Are amberlinks also from Hendrix? If so I'd guess they are "real" ones, since the TSC also had ISA browns.
Man, who knew chickens were so confusing!

I’m confused also lol I also read that they are not as common as the other “link” chickens.

 

[AlleysChicks]

I'm almost afraid to ask... what is chicken math?

Basically you get a few chickens and then you suddenly discover you have more.

Like last year I started with 10 and I sold 4. Then I went out one day this spring and there were 60 chickens in my yard. That’s chicken math

I’ve recently made it down to 27 and swore I wasn’t going to get any chicks until spring when it warms back up. THEN my 5 month old EE decided she wanted babies. So those are due next weekend lol That’s advanced chicken math!

 

[MinervaELS]

It is something that is still being figured out by experts. When it comes to breeding, aggressiveness, sexing, pecking order, molting. Almost everything that has mysteries in the adventure of chicken keeping. But it's one thing that stays a mystery. As stressful as it can get? It's something every chicken keeper goes through. But we still have chickens.

Aw dang it. I just got them to eat the bugs around here and now I'm a member of a chicken forum asking questions about sex linkage on a Saturday night. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

 

[The Angry Hen]

Aw dang it. I just got them to eat the bugs around here and now I'm a member of a chicken forum asking questions about sex linkage on a Saturday night. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Ha ha!! Anything is possible. You'll be fine!

 

[MinervaELS]

Basically you get a few chickens and then you suddenly discover you have more.

Like last year I started with 10 and I sold 4. Then I went out one day this spring and there were 60 chickens in my yard. That’s chicken math

I’ve recently made it down to 27 and swore I wasn’t going to get any chicks until spring when it warms back up. THEN my 5 month old EE decided she wanted babies. So those are due next weekend lol That’s advanced chicken math!

Oh come on, don't tell me that! I already have more than I want! I asked a friend how many chicks to get and she said a dozen since they're fragile and some will die.

None of them have died. Not one. None of them have even come close! We have had no escapees, no injuries, the neighborhood roaming coonhound and husky give them only polite glances... they don't even bully one another. They all get along as meek as lambs. I was being told horror stories of chicks killing one another and cannibalizing each other. And now I have a dozen chickens when I only wanted five or six. Is this how it starts?

 

[rebrascora]

Actually chicken maths is the inexplicable science of increasing flock number. It involves a lot of addition and multiplication and the art of subtraction is rare and difficult.
It is how you start out with just 3 chickens and before you know where you are at, you have 20 or 40 or even 100+, or you don't really know how many you have, but it's a heck of a lot more than the 3 you started with and being unable to give a definitive answer when someone asks you how many you have now (and people do, with uneasy regularity.... they suspect chicken maths even though they haven't heard of it), is really just a means of easing your conscience! There is a force of nature involved which is extremely difficult to resist and it is governed by some sort of compulsive theory that no-one can totally define....... Beware of "chicken maths".... you have been warned!

PS. Where did you get these chicks. If it was TSC all bets are off as regards pullets as they have an impressive reputation for mixing chicks up and selling them as breeds and sexes they are not. That little chap with the red comb is a little boy in my book and I'm not overly sure about at least one of the others.

 

[drumstick diva]

x 2