![]() ![]() It did not struggle when you picked it up and did not make grunting sounds like a male may make. This bird only made soft clucking sounds like a hen would make. Males at four months are often crowing especially first thing in the morning. If you placed it with another male, they may begin to fight even at this young age. It is currently alone so I can’t see how it interacts with others. It seems very docile once its eye feathers were trimmed. Boys stand up taller than girls as a rule and there is more room between the tail and the bottom of the feet.īehavior is hard to tell since I didn’t see how it developed. Foot feathering depends on breeding but males will have larger feet. Females foot feathering are more in proportion to the rest of its body. This silkie has large feet and massive foot feathering. Females often have their tail down in a more submissive position. I also think that this is a male characteristic. Just because they seem large, it makes me think male. They also seem to be hard or stiff – not shreddy. The wings on the bird looked long, especially the primaries. I did not have another to compare it with but they looked shorter and more female to me. Males should have longer hackle feathers than the females at this point. Next I looked at the hackle feathers on the neck. Nothing so far, but there are new feathers coming in right at the spot that could later develop into streamers. I looked at the back of the head to check for “streamer” development. Because I didn’t see this bird when it was younger, I don’t know if it went through any Elvis type crest that some males have beginning at two months. The crest of this bird had a definite pom pom shape. Again, females will develop very small wattles as they grow towards maturity. This bird had just the slightest suggestion of the outline of a wattle. I begin to see them as young as two months old as small red dots. At four months they should be showing on a male. The comb was wider than younger females but at four months female silkie’s combs begin to grow. It was unable to see and this could have been part of the reason that it pecked so hard at my hand. The first thing I did was to trim around the eyes. ![]() The more I looked at it, the more I just couldn’t get a handle on whether I thought it was a boy or a girl. It was a pet quality partridge or buff silkie. I put my hand down next to it and it immediately pecked it – hard!Īfter the customer left, I began looking more closely at the bird. I asked him why he thought it was a rooster at that young age and he said that it was because it had a mean disposition. I had a customer return a rooster for rehoming last week that was around four months old. After twelve weeks the female comb begins to get wider as well and males and females will begin to look similar again.ĪT VJP Poultry we have a rooster return policy. Males will continue to develop their combs which will become wider and may get bumpy. Females tend to have a more narrow upside down “V” at the top of their combs. A upside down “U” at the top part of the comb may be the beginning of a wider developing comb and signal a male. The silkie comb on males may begin to show some signs of development from three weeks onward. If you want more information about sexing younger silkies, check out “sexing young silkie chicks.Īt around three weeks, males will begin to be more aggressive and will play fight with other males in the same pen. Males tend to be larger and more curious than the females. Newborns that are hatched together out of the same color pen can be judged on size. I have found that certain weeks of age are easier than others for telling which are boys and which are girls. The old adage that you can’t tell them apart until they crow or lay an egg has a lot of truth in it. Silkies are among the hardest breed of chickens to sex at a young age. ![]()
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