Gender Differences of Baby Chickens

Sexing hatched chickens is a difficult process without a great degree of success. Baby chicks have little difference in outside characteristics that can be used to determine gender, unless a professional sexer examines them. Superstitions abound asserting that cockerels hatch from elongated eggs and hens from round. Professional sexers work at hatcheries to tell the males from the females at hatching time. Some breeds of chickens are color coded by sex. Home breeders usually are able to determine a chick's sex when it's about 4 weeks old. Sometimes the only way to tell is after the first crow.

  1. Sex-link

    • Determining the sex in sex-link breeds such as Black and Red sex-links is easy. These hybrid birds are sexed at hatching by fluff color. Males are a very light beige and females are a buff color as chicks. They retain color differences into maturity at full feathering and will not breed true.

    Feather Sexing

    • Breeding slow-feathering birds to fast-feathering birds can produce feather-sexable offspring. Slow feathering female breed lines are mated to fast feathering male breeding lines. The chicks resulting from these specifics will be differentiated at feathering time, not at hatch, because the females will feather faster than the male chicks.

    Vent Sexing

    • Vent sexing is usually guaranteed by professional sexers and was developed in the 1930s. Bird sex organs are internal which significantly complicates the process, but sexers can determine these gender differences at hatch. Male and female chickens have more than a dozen varieties of vents which require training to be able to distinguish with reliability.

    Age Sexing

    • Age sexing is the usual option of backyard poultry keepers. Secondary sex markers appear after a few weeks of growth. Breeds develop at different rates with the Fayoumi exhibiting the most rapid maturation rate with cockerels crowing at 5 weeks of age. Some differences are that males develop coloring of the comb and wattles before pullets. Pullets often feather sooner, particularly on the wings and tail, with rounded-over feather edges at the neck. Cockerels become more leggy than the females with slightly more boisterous behavior and an upright demeanor. Cockerels may exhibit masculine features with larger heads and feet than the more feminine-featured pullet. None of these gender differences is completely accurate and variability in individuals is common.