Sexing Chicks: How To Tell A Male From A Female

By no means am I a pro at sexing chicks.  I am still pretty new to this whole chicken thing myself.  But having raised somewhere around 50 chickens now in all sorts of different breeds, I have learned to identify a few characteristics in my own flocks that have proven to be accurate for me when sexing them.

Day old chickens can be extremely hard to sex (meaning to tell if they are male or female) when they are straight run and not sex-links.  But, if you can be patient (I know, patience is not a virtue I claim to have either), it doesn't take too awfully long before chickens start to show signs of their differences.

These pictures were taken when these Rhode Island Red babies were about 4 weeks old.  Even as young as they are, there are obvious differences and it's not hard to tell which is which if you know what you're looking for.  You could probably notice the difference at about 3 weeks old.

The top picture is a female Rhode Island Red.  Once she is one year old, she will claim her title "Hen."  Before she is one year old, she has the title "Pullet".

Notice how she has long tail feathers and her comb and waddles aren't coming in very quickly.

The bottom picture is a male Rhode Island Red.  Once he is one year old, he will claim his title "Rooster".  Before he is one year old, he has the title "Cockerel".

Notice his large comb and that he has waddles developing already.  He also has almost no tail feathers.

Another thing I have noticed with young cockerels is that they stand more upright and have more of a dominant behavior than the pullets, sometimes roosting in a high place and acting like they are surveying the area for potential dangers, even if they are in a brooder in your bathroom.

Sometimes there is a difference in feather colors or patterns as well.  My Cuckoo Marans cockerel developed the bars on his feathers when the pullets still just had spots.  Of my 26 Red Rangers, I had 5 cockerels.  They were identified by the darker red color they had in comparison to the pullets early on.  The cockerels also had a very dominate disposition about them.  They stood more upright and had the tendency to roost high and "watch" for the flock.

I hope this is some help while you are trying to determine if you have males or females.  And don't forget, you only need one male to every 8-12 females.  If you have more males than that, they will wear out your girls.  Your flock will be much happier with an appropriate ratio of males to females.