The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding

Determining Gender in Brown Red Chicks

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Sharon Yorks:
I just now made an observation. Here are two more chicks out of the same blue on blue rooster and hen. These chicks are only 11 days old and the other chick was 24 days old. The light colored chick (which I thought was a splash) looks like its feathers are coming in dark, too. The other chick (which I am almost certain is a male) was born with a very pretty shade of blue. The blue one has a spot on its head, too.

I'm wondering if it's possible to tell the sex of this pair of adults, by the color of the chick...the lighter ones female and the darker one a male. The feet thing wouldn't hold true, though.

To be continued...

Birdcrazy:
Sharon , My brother told me a long time ago to study the chicks from your own breeding lines, and from evaluation over the years you will be able to determine desirable characteristics you wish to keep. The more you study the better you can evaluate your chicks at a younger age. If the chick you had in the picture was from my breeding line, it probably would have been a Splash. I guess it shows Blues can be all over the board when it comes to color from light blue to almost black with blue on the chest.
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John:

--- Quote ---The more you study the better you can evaluate your chicks at a younger age.
--- End quote ---
Right on!  I've been promoting culling day-old chicks for several years now based on phenotype.  Once you figure out which chick phenotype grows into the best show quality birds you will know what to look for and save money by not broodering and feeding the run of the mill chicks.  "Chick Uniformity" is a term I picked up somewhere along the line and even use it on my Chick Hatchery site's FAQ page.

Beth C:

--- Quote ---My brother told me a long time ago to study the chicks from your own breeding lines, and from evaluation over the years you will be able to determine desirable characteristics you wish to keep.
--- End quote ---

Michael told be something similar. He suggested taking pictures of individuals once a week from hatching through maturity and look for patterns. Those patterns are likely to repeat in subsequent years (assuming you don't out cross, then all bets are off). In past years I've started this then had bands come off, numbers rub off of bands, or other forms of ID fail (tried tattooing one year, couldn't read half of them @ maturity). The wings bands are working better than anything else I've tried so I'm going to give it another go this year. And I'm hatching way fewer chicks this year, so I have the time to pay more attention to individuals.

greeneggsandham:

--- Quote from: Sharon Yorks on February 07, 2013, 11:21:28 PM ---I noticed that one of the blue chicks I hatched a few days ago has a black spot on its head. Does anyone know what it is or why it shows up? This is the first chick out of Reba (blue) and she was breed to a blue rooster.

--- End quote ---

Hmmm...glad I found this again.  I've got the same thing showing up in a hatch I just had.  A blue x blue cross with chicks that I'm questioning whether they are splash or blue.  I'm thinking blue, just very, very light.  I also have the darker blue spot on the head of some.  I must admit, I haven't seen this before in blues and was debating keeping one to grow out and see what happens.  I'm not thinking it has anything to do with sex, but may have much to do with coloring and lacing perhaps?

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