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Sexing Chicks: How to Determine the Gender of Color Crossed and Pure Breed Chicks

© Greg Davies

One of the most difficult tasks for the backyard chicken breeder is that of sexing young chicks.

Modern commercial hatcheries use a variety of tricks that allow them to determine the sex of every chick from the moment it hatches. The most common method is sex-linked crossing: the cross breeding of birds of particular colors which result in male chicks having different color down than female chicks.

Methods of Determining Sex in Day Old Color-Crossed Chicks

The gold to silver cross. Mating a gold male such as Rhode Island Red, Buff Rock, Buff Leghorn, Buff Orpington, Red or Buff Sussex to silver hens such as Light Sussex, Light Brahma or pure White Wyandotte, results in all the cockerel (male) chicks having whitish grey or pale brown down, whereas the pullets (females) have reddish-brown or buff down. Mating the hens mentioned above with black red type males like Old English or Modern Game, Welsummer, Brown Leghorn, Dark Cornish or Barnevelders gives very similar results, except the female chicks have brown stripes and markings. The male chicks have a lighter greyish colour with black and grey markings.

The third cross involves non-barred males such as Australorp, Black Leghorn, Rhode Island Red or Ancona mated with barred females such as Plymouth Rocks or Cuckoo Leghorns. The resulting chicks are all black or dark brown with white underneath, but the females have dark brown or black heads, and the males all carry a whitish spot on the back of their heads.

The fourth method relies on leg color, but as this is not always clearly defined in day old chicks, it is not as reliable. Mating dark legged males such as Silkies, Minorcas or Campines to females with light shanks such as Sussex, Leghorns or Wyandottes gives male chicks with pale legs and female chicks with dark legs.

The last method uses feathering. Mating an early-feathering male such as an to hens of a slow-feathering breed like Sussex or Rhode Island Reds will result in male chicks with very short flight feathers that do not protrude past the downy wing coverts, and females that show definite wing flights past the wing coverts. This method requires inspection immediately after hatching, before the males feather growth "catches up" to that of some late hatching pullets.

Determining Sex in Heavy Breed Chicks

Of course, these methods are useless to the serious breeder of pure breed chickens. In these cases, it takes a little longer to determine the males from the pullets, particularly with heavy breeds. It is usually easy to pick light breed males at about a month old. They sport much larger and brighter head furnishings and are usually far more precocious than their sisters.