Ameraucana - Is There An Easy Way To Sex?

kenya · Post by **kenya** » Thu Aug 04, 2016 2:03 am

Shnookie wrote:QR_BBPOST Well, I got the sex of this one right. He was dominant and ran over to anything new in the pen from very young. He's definitely a male. He started crowing at 5 1/2 weeks.

He is very handsome!

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:51 pm

A real beauty, wish I had one of those....

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:57 pm

Shnookie wrote:QR_BBPOST This one is a female, I think. It is the only one I hatched from some eggs I bought. They were supposed to be pure Ameraucanas. Has anyone seen striping like she has in her chest feathers before? Do you know if it will go away? It wasn't there when she was small. She is 7 weeks old in the picture.

I have seen something like that on a cockerel I got from Jan, only really a suggestion or shading which then disappeared, but some of his offspring are
showing suggestion of "autosomal red" , just a shading again, but definitely there.
She may look black after her next molt, but it's probably going to crop up somewhere, if you breed her.

Shnookie · Post by **Shnookie** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:31 pm

Shnookie wrote:QR_BBPOST I tried to take pictures of the comb on each of my chicks, but I was doing it myself and they were all blurry. I have marked down which chicks I think are males and which I think are females based on how their combs looked yesterday.

Well, this test worked partly. I had eight chicks. When I looked at their combs, I thought I had 4 males and 4 females. They are 8 weeks now, and it is pretty obvious that there is 6 males and 2 females. 2 of the ones I thought were females were actually males. I was right for the other 4 males. This way of sexing might work with practise, and some good pictures of the combs. One other thing that might have made it harder was that the two hens I bred were quite different from each other, so the combs on the chicks are not all similar. I hatched 3 more chicks all from the same hen. I think there is 1 male and 2 females. I'll see what happens.

Shnookie · Post by **Shnookie** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:33 pm

Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST A real beauty, wish I had one of those....

I need some pullets OC. Maybe we can make a deal...
I have 4 blue males to choose from. He is the prettiest, but not the biggest of the group.

Shnookie · Post by **Shnookie** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:34 pm

Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST She may look black after her next molt, but it's probably going to crop up somewhere, if you breed her.

I suspected this. Thanks for your thoughts.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:37 pm

Shnookie wrote:QR_BBPOST
Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST A real beauty, wish I had one of those....
I need some pullets OC. Maybe we can make a deal...
I have 4 blue males to choose from. He is the prettiest, but not the biggest of the group.

Sounds like a plan, I will have couple of extra Blue pullets for sure.
Can't say I am enamored by any of my cockerels coming up, one beautiful Black, but no use for him.
Well, I have driven to Winnipeg before, but not with a chicken

maybe we can get Jim to drop by on his travels?

Shnookie · Post by **Shnookie** » Wed Aug 10, 2016 5:53 pm

I don't know how I would get them. Expresspost won't work.

I'll see if I can come up with something. There's one blue male you won't want, he's really fine built. I think I have a black male chick in the house (2 weeks). He might be nice.

Shnookie · Post by **Shnookie** » Wed Aug 17, 2016 12:42 pm

Hackle feathers are coming in and I'm sad to say that ALL the pure Ameraucana chicks from this hatch are males. There were two males and four females in the Ameraucana x EO group. Need a new way to tell, my test didn't work.