Sexing Chicks in 2020 - Feathers Tell ALL! | Homestead Dreaming

In today's video we take a trip to Arkansas for a family visit and feather sex my mother in law's new baby chickens. Girl or Boy? Can you tell which is which?
Welcome to our channel! We are Kira & Steve and this is our every day life! We are homestead dreaming, bread baking, kombucha brewing, chicken loving, husband and wife duo and parents of 3 littles.
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[@rebeccagrider7359]

As a mother of men, and a mother-in-law of ladies, I appreciate any woman who loves her mother-in-law!!!!!! Bless You!!!!

[@HomesteadDreaming]

thank you 😊

[@birdieloo6168]

They’re blessings to each other ☺️

[@kathybradbury]

That’s the best demo on feather sexing I’ve seen! Thank you!

[@whitehouseonthehill]

I'd love to see an update in 3-4 months to check accuracy. That would be cool.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

I can definitely do that!

[@jessicajohanson9162]

@@HomesteadDreaming did she ever do an update??

[@HomesteadDreaming]

@@jessicajohanson9162 I didn't but I can soon. They're my in laws chickens.

[@jessicajohanson9162]

@@HomesteadDreaming that would be awesome. Currently trying to figure this out myself with wing pattern

[@emiliebernarddetracy5333]

@@jessicajohanson9162 where is the update??

[@alliebagwell9653]

Thanks for this, I bought 4 pullets but as grow we were worried 1 might be a rooster.....I'm off to inspect feather wings! Lol

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Hope your feathers came back all pullets lol

[@dawndressel8393]

Thank you for the info.

[@kss9548]

Thanks for the video! Recently got 24 chicks, I’ve been fearing that a lot are cockerels. 😬 I can finally see if my fear is valid.

[@CCCFattyChickens]

Thank you! This video was helpful.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

So glad it helped!

[@TheAnimalPapa]

Like 99! Hi Kira and Steven, congratulations on being right on the sexing of the chickens 🐓 but this year you can tell your a lot more confident on this tough job! Another great informational video! Keep up the great work! Hope you have a great rest of the week my new friend! Take care, happy homesteading and God bless you and the family! Animal Papa and Junior! 😎🐓❤️👍🙏

[@silly_mellon]

I bought an unsexed run and thanks to your video i can see i have 10 boys. Ordered 10 girls right away. Thank you!

[@WMHhomestead]

Sexing chicks is always such a pain! I wish we had gotten sex linked chicks at first so it would have been easy. We learned that the feather test doesn’t work on many breeds pretty quickly lol. Out of the 8 chickens we thought were hens 6 turned out to be roosters 😖

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Oh goodness 😬 so many roosters

[@danielthalion]

This is only 50% accurate 😂😂😂

[@robinhazeslip1800]

This is GREAT! Thnkbu for this video with clear examples!

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Glad it was helpful!

[@xxhoneystarzxx4950]

Just to educate some folks, wing sexing and tail feather sexing only works on fast feathering and slow feathering sex linked birds, so you can't do this with just any birds- signed a chicken breeder who has bred fast feathering and slow feathering breeds, you also have to do them day one... if you wait at all you have 0 chance of any accuracy

[@basedsasquatch7387]

You have such an awesome personality! Also, great tips

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thank you! 😊

[@MOOSEHEADstadia2024]

Love your videos. Thanks Kira!

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thank you 😊

[@Icluckingloveit]

Super helpful, thank you

[@redpillgirl1843]

Thank you so much for this video it was so helpful!

[@kittymama611]

Depends of the chickens breed.

[@sharonpack4696]

So cool, I never knew. Show off. Lol. That's why I watch ya Kido. 💕😁

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Hahaha to be fair some breeds, like silkies for instance

[@margarethaxe790]

Feather sexing should be done when the chicken is 1 or 2 days old. I bought eggs from the Barnevelder and as soon as they dried up I could tell. While the hens have a grey brest and the cockerells have a white brest.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

That's not always an option when you buy chicks rather than hatching them yourself. This method is accurate at 1-3 weeks old and not all breeds can be sexed by the color of their chest

[@margarethaxe790]

@@HomesteadDreaming You are right.

[@brandonkerr93]

How old were the chicks in this video, at the time?

[@MsOrionsmom]

Shes says quit looking at my butt! Lol

[@HomesteadDreaming]

😂😂

[@Leesorganiclife]

Great video and explanation 👍🏾

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thanks!

[@NaomiFox-lr9vs]

Thanks so much..... It helped me out

[@smalltowngirl1793]

Do you know if feather sexing works for mixes of Brahmas, Orpingtons, Americaunas, Wyandottes, Australorps, and Cuckoo Marans?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

I'm not an expert by any means but I would think that if both breeds can be feather sexed when pure then the mixes will be able to as well. I'd say if one of the breeds the chick is mixed with can't be feather sexed and one can the resulting chick won't be able to be feather sexed.

[@shannonevans3029]

Thank you for your video!!!

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thank you for watching 🙂

[@crystalmoskovitz470]

how old were these chicks?

[@jandoinc]

Thanks for the video. I'll go check mine!

[@rosieandchristopher]

Thank you so much for this ❤️❤️❤️

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thanks for watching! I hope it helped

[@MJ-wz6jo]

I have 1 hatchling I got the egg from the neighbors almost a month old I thought it was a hen but think chickadee might be a rooster looking at the Wing. the two I got from the hatchery are hens the wing feathers are all across . Like you're.

[@yendorofny]

Do these indicators still apply, at app 1 month old?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Yes! They're usually still partially feathered enough at that point that you can see a difference in growth points where the little pullets are noticeably more feathered than the roos

[@SuperReaps]

If you make a video, do it in sunlight so we can see better. Black chicks in shade does not work. Thanks anyway

[@jmboulware]

It would have been nice to know how old those were

[@HomesteadDreaming]

a few weeks. Like I said in the video, they were my mother in laws so not sure on the exact age. It is what it is 👍

[@sandragillingham6255]

So cool..I didn't know that.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

it's so neat!

[@Cooljoe872]

Wtf. This video just confused me. Every single other video says the exact opposite on the wings and says the even wings belong to males and the uneven wings belong to females.

[@FeraleHubbard]

Yay!!!

[@MrLee-ix5ew]

Thank you for this video. How old do the chicks need to be to determine this? Can this be determined in the first couple weeks or 6+ weeks ?? Thank you

[@HomesteadDreaming]

I wait for at least a week to let some of the feathers develop a little so you can see the difference

[@dallasbailey3226]

Thanks so much I just did that with my chicks and turns out I got to pullets

[@jonathan08101973]

Couldn’t find a follow-up video, so I have to ask - How right were you in determining their sex?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Theyre my mother in laws chickens one was a barred rock rooster, his name is now Elvis. I was correct on him. The rest were pullets and I was correct on them but I'm not sure what breed they were anymore as this was over a year ago.

[@way2hot4u365]

Are you still able to do this with 2 day old birds?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

It depends on the breed and some people do but I like to wait until their feathers come out a little more and it makes it easier for me to tell the difference between the development of the pullets tail and wing feathers and the lack of development of those same feathers on cockrells

[@settlepoultry1734]

Can u do golden laced Wyandottes

[@HomesteadDreaming]

We don't have any plans to add Golden laced Wyandottes to our flock at this time and I don't know anyone who currently has any GLW chicks however you can use this same method with them.

[@WorldOnAString]

What breed are the chicks? Until what age can you tell by the wing feathers? Mine are about 2.5 weeks old, and they are australorps. I saw your video from last year, and we also have 3 buff orpington chicks. I think my daughter's favorite is a rooster. Ruh roh. I'll let her and hubby negotiate over that one.

[@WMHhomestead]

It definitely doesn’t work for the buff orpingtons lol. We tried the feather test when picking them out and it was totally wrong 😫. We ended up with 3 out of 4 roosters!

[@HomesteadDreaming]

My first batch were buff orpingtons and I was able to correctly feather sex them all. It works best when they're under 3 weeks old. After that the males start to develop their feathers, too. And I have noticed that it is harder to sex them if you don't have both genders. If they all look the same you just can't tell as easily if you're new. I had some backyard mixes last summer that were both roosters but I had a garden time telling until they were a bit older due to not having any hens to compare them to. These were in a bin of mixed chicks so we are not sure which breed they are at this point. We are hoping once they feather out we will get a better idea of what they are.

[@littlefeet3948]

What breed are they? Australorps?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

They are my mother in laws and she picked them up out of a mixed bin at tractor supply so I'm not 100% sure what they are

[@bobbybrown840]

💙

[@brandonkerr93]

I have 11 baby chicks that are all 11 and 12 days old, and they all seem to have those little tail feathers. My question, Is there a certain day where the cockerels grow tail feathers as well?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

There's not set day but usually by the first week or two, when you put a pullet and a cockerel next to each other you'll be able to see that the pullet has little tail feathers and longer wing feathers and the cookers have just fuzz on their tails and much shorter wings. There she exceptions, like frizzles for example can't be feather sexed. But these were about a month or so old at the time

[@brandonkerr93]

@@HomesteadDreaming thank you!

[@mamagem-caster7851]

how old are they in this vid

[@HomesteadDreaming]

It's been a few years so my memory isn't 100% but i want to say they were 4 to 6 weeks in this one. They were my mother in laws chicks so I went with the info I had but having them side by side the difference in feather growth between the little cockrell and the pullets was noticeable

[@NikkiRazo]

What breed were these chicks?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

The rooster is a barred rock, his name is now Elvis. The pullets were a mix of breeds that I can't recall off the top of my head. They're my mother in laws chickens and this was filmed over a year ago. They were sexed correctly though. She was under the impression they were all pullets and I was like no this ones a boy

[@JayTX.]

Wyandottes?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Theyre a mixture. The roo is a barred rock. There's a Wyandotte and there's a few others. They're my mother in laws so I don't know all of them on the top of my head as they don't have all of the original chicks anymore

[@Citystead]

Ok so wait, he hit the ring right? Is he buying you a farm now?

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Lol eventually

[@Alicia-gx8bu]

I think I miss sexed my chickens. 😮 I guess I will wait a little longer for the red waddles to show. There was a photo on Google that shows the complete opposite. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m so confused now. 😢

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Sometimes it's hit and miss

[@RCGshakenbake]

I got 6 chicks and all of them have fat tail feathers at 2 weeks. Hoping they're all hens. The guy that gave them to me said he would trade the roosters I got for hens but I don't want to mess with that.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

🤞 I hope they are! The little pulleys develop their tail and wkng feathers more quickly than the little roos.

[@RCGshakenbake]

@@HomesteadDreaming I checked their wings too and they were fully feathered. 🤞

[@ani1mal7]

Huge help. Ty

[@LightninSharples]

sure seems like you got all your information backwards. i think about everybody knows that roosters get longer prettier feathers than hens do... true for just about any bird species, and especially tailfeathers.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

While fully feathered roosters do have longer feathers, it takes them longer to develop. The pullets develop their wing and tail feathers earlier than cockrells.

[@LightninSharples]

@@HomesteadDreaming ok.. thank you., i didn't know.

[@kendallhowell3469]

I was told the opposite on this???🥺

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Uh oh, keep an eye out for a comb and spurs

[@kendallhowell3469]

@@HomesteadDreaming is this the same with all types Plymouth Rock,sapphire gems,Rhode Island red,starlight or isa browns?

[@kendallhowell3469]

@@HomesteadDreaming I was told a males wing was flush and a female had a slight curve

[@HomesteadDreaming]

If your chick has that second layer of wing feathers in the back then it's female. The females also will develop their tail feathers earlier than a male will. Some breeds can not be feather sexed, for example, silkies can not be feather sexed. It's also not an exact science and there is room for error. These chicks, and the chicks in my previous chick sexing video, were all sexed correctly. However I have previously misidentified roos as pullets in the passed when I didn't have a pullet to compare them to. Good luck in your chicken raising! Hope that is helpful

[@kendallhowell3469]

@@HomesteadDreaming thank you! Greatly appreciated

[@caroleadams5050]

Too dark to see.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Thank you for the feedback!

[@KyralSymouri]

I don't understand why nearly the first minute of this video had nothing to do with the birds at all. Dave with the ending

[@HomesteadDreaming]

Because for my regular viewers they want more than just the topic at hand and care about what I have to offer. My channel is about my homesteading journey. The journey is part of the video. If that's not your cup of tea, there's plenty of other videos to watch 👍

[@brendaeulenstein4255]

Different breeds have different feathering.

[@HomesteadDreaming]

They absolutely do and some, like frizzles for example, can not be feather sexed. These were all correctly sexed. 1 roo, the rest pullets.