Rhode Island Red Rooster vs Hen: How to Tell Them Apart, Week by Week

You’ve got a row of red pullets, or what the box called pullets. And one of them is starting to look a little too pleased with himself. With Rhode Island Reds you can usually tell whether that’s a rooster. Just not as early as you’d like, and the signs people swear by don’t all show up at the same age.

So I read 11 sources for this page. Two are extension guides to sexing chicks, and one is a hatchery’s own photo guide to young birds. Three are hatcheries’ pages for the breed. Three more are those same hatcheries’ policies for a chick that was sexed wrong. The last two are The Livestock Conservancy’s page on Reds and a Penn State guide to keeping laying hens (you’ll find every one at the bottom). If you’d rather put your own bird’s age and signs through a checker, our free Rooster or Hen? tool does that.

The short version.

• A grown Red rooster weighs about 8.5 pounds and a hen about 6.5 pounds, by the hatcheries’ own numbers.
• The comb and wattles give the first real hint, usually from 4 to 6 weeks.
• The saddle feathers settle it. Only roosters grow them, and one hatchery’s staff can barely see them at 10 to 12 weeks.
• A crow is a strong clue. It isn’t proof, because a hen can crow.
• Every source I read warns about the rooster’s temper, and that includes the hatcheries selling him.
• If a “pullet” crows, what you’re owed depends on the hatchery. Meyer refunds any chick of the wrong sex. McMurray and Cackle pay only past 10% of the order.

Side by Side: a Grown Rooster and a Hen

Start with size, because that’s where the hatcheries agree. Meyer and McMurray both list a Rhode Island Red hen at 6.5 pounds and a rooster at 8.5 pounds, and so does Cackle. The Livestock Conservancy rounds it off: hens “weigh over 6 pounds and the roosters over 8 pounds”. That’s a 2-pound gap. So a grown rooster runs roughly 30% heavier than a grown hen (that’s my arithmetic, not theirs). Cackle lists the young birds too, a pullet at 5.5 pounds and a cockerel at 7.5 pounds. Same 2-pound gap.

Color won’t help you, honestly. McMurray says hens and roosters both have “a rich mahogany body with black on their tail feathers”. Meyer calls males and females alike “lovely shades of deep mahogany red”. What color can tell you is something about the strain. The Conservancy says Reds have been bred since the 1940s for more efficient laying. They came out of it smaller and lighter in color, and they quit going broody so much. The “old-type” Reds are bigger and darker, and they go broody more. All three hatcheries call their own Reds a production strain. And Cackle says its show lines “often show a darker red color”. So a dark bird next to a light one may just be from a different line. It doesn’t make either one a rooster.

Where they do differ is the head and the feathers. Dr. Jacquie Jacob’s guide for the University of Kentucky lays it out plainly. Here’s how it reads for a Red.

• Comb and wattles: the males have bigger combs and wattles than the females, and bigger bodies too. The Reds these hatcheries sell have a single comb (there’s a lesser-known rose-comb variety). On single-comb birds, Kentucky says, “the male’s comb stands upright and the females typically flop over on one side”. Note the word “typically”. Don’t bet the farm on one floppy comb.
• Neck feathers: the male’s hackles are longer and narrower than a hen’s, with more of a point. A hen’s have “a rounded oval shape”.
• Saddle feathers: both sexes have main tail feathers, “but only the males have saddle feathers”. Meyer Hatchery says they grow “over the back at the base of the tail”.
• Spurs: “The males develop larger spurs than the females”. Larger, it says. So a hen with a little nub of a spur is still a hen.

Mississippi State’s extension adds one you’ll notice on a grown bird. The rooster’s head turns “more angular and masculine looking”, while the hen stays smaller and “more refined”. Then there are the sickles, the long curved feathers on top of a rooster’s tail. Meyer Hatchery counts them with the hackles and saddles as the surest signs there are.

Week by Week: When Each Sign Shows Up

Here’s the catch. Every one of those signs is on a grown bird. At hatch, Kentucky says, “male and female chicks are the same weight”. And “The most accurate way to sex chicks is to watch them grow”. So here’s what the sources say you’ll see, and roughly when.

• At hatch: Reds and New Hampshires “can be sexed by wing color at hatching”. The male chicks have “a white spot on the down over the wing web”. But Kentucky warns in the next breath that the spot varies a lot in size, “so sexing in this way is not always accurate”. And it’s gone once the down gives way to feathers.
• From 4 to 6 weeks: the comb and wattles. Mississippi State says sexing by these signs “can usually be performed after chicks attain 4 to 6 weeks of age”. Kentucky adds that a young rooster’s comb starts growing earlier than a pullet’s. The timing “varies from breed to breed”, though.
• At 10 to 12 weeks: the first feathers that count. At this age, Meyer Hatchery says, “we can barely begin to see the hackles around the neck and the saddle feathers developing over the back”. Its 12-week example is a Black Copper Marans, not a Red.
• At 14 weeks: maybe. Meyer shows two 14-week cockerels. One is already growing saddle feathers, and the other isn’t “clearly showing the feathering” yet. “Frequently, we need to check back in another couple of weeks,” it says.
• At 18 weeks: that same slow bird “clearly shows the hackles and saddles”. That’s one Olive Egger, though. It’s not a rule for every Red.

Here’s one more way to read the calendar. Look at when the hatcheries themselves expect to know. Meyer takes reports of a wrong sex between 14 and 22 weeks. Cackle asks for side-on photos taken at 10 to 16 weeks, “when secondary sex characteristics are obvious”. For a Red, neither one asks you to judge a chick of a few weeks. Meyer does open an early window at 3 weeks, but only for a few breeds such as Salmon Faverolles. I wouldn’t try it on a Red.

Mississippi State also explains why the box can be wrong in the first place. The two ways to sex a day-old chick are vent sexing and feather sexing. It calls both “unsuitable for use by the small flock owner”. Vent sexers are highly trained people, and most of them work for “large commercial hatcheries”. Feather sexing only works on strains bred for it. So every hatchery here admits that some of its sexed chicks will be wrong. Meyer’s policy page says “an error may occur”. Cackle’s says sexing chicks “is not an exact science”.

Crowing Is a Clue, Not Proof

Crowing is the sign everyone waits for. Kentucky puts it simply: “The males switch from chirping, which is common to all chicks, to attempting to crow”. But none of my 11 sources gives a week when a Red starts. So I won’t make one up for you.

And a crow doesn’t settle it. Turns out a hen can do it too. Meyer Hatchery says “A hen can mimic a rooster’s crowing, especially if there is not a rooster present and a dominant hen decides she will be the flock leader”. In a hens-only flock, then, the bird crowing could be your boss hen. Meyer’s own conclusion is that “even the witness of a crow is not a 100% certain way to determine the gender of young chickens”.

What Meyer trusts instead is the feathers. The most accurate sign across most breeds, it says, is whether the bird grows a male’s hackles and saddle feathers, plus the sickles in the tail. So say a Red crows at you. If it’s well past 18 weeks with round neck feathers and no saddle feathers, I’d believe the feathers.

Temper: Every Source Warns About the Rooster

The old version of this page said the hatcheries describe Reds in kinder words than The Livestock Conservancy does. I went back and read their pages again. That isn’t true. They put a gentle word in the spec box and a warning in the text.

• Meyer Hatchery lists the breed’s personality as “Friendly, Calm”. The same page says “Roosters may become aggressive”.
• Cackle Hatchery lists the temperament as “Active”. Its page says “Some males may show aggression, so customers should manage roosters with care, especially around children or mixed flocks”. It adds that roosters “may need more experienced handling”.
• The Livestock Conservancy calls the breed calm. Then it says “Some roosters may be aggressive at times. Most hens are peaceful”.
• McMurray puts it the friendliest way, that “males are great flock protectors”. That’s the same job, seen from the hens’ side of the run.

So the calm and friendly in the spec box mostly means the hens. Cackle adds that temperament “can vary by individual bird”. If you’ve got kids who help out in the coop, Cackle’s line about children is the one I’d read twice.

What the Hen Does: Eggs, Laying Age, Broodiness

She lays, and a Red lays well. But the sources don’t agree on how well. One hatchery doesn’t even agree with itself. Here’s each number with where it came from.

• McMurray Hatchery’s breed table: an average of 238 eggs a year. The Q&A further down the same page says “They will average 280-365 eggs a year”. Both are on McMurray’s page today.
• Cackle Hatchery: “200-280 eggs per year”, which Cackle itself labels “estimates only”.
• Meyer Hatchery: 4 to 6 eggs a week. A hen who kept that up all 52 weeks would lay 208 to 312 eggs a year. That’s my arithmetic, though, not a number Meyer gives.
• The Livestock Conservancy: “200 – 300 eggs a year starting as early as six months of age”.

As for when she starts, Meyer lists laying maturity at 16 to 20 weeks. McMurray’s page says Reds “typically begin laying around 18-24 weeks of age”. The Conservancy says as early as six months. If you want a date for your own pullets, our first egg calculator works it out from the day they hatched.

She probably won’t sit on eggs, either, if she came from a hatchery. McMurray calls its Reds “not at all likely” to go broody. Meyer says they “rarely brood, so you’ll have to find someone else to sit”. Cackle just says “Variable”. The Conservancy explains the split. Most hens of the breed “can become broody except within the strains that have been heavily selected for egg production”. And all three hatcheries call their Reds a production strain.

She doesn’t need him to lay, either. Penn State Extension says it in one line: “Roosters are not necessary in a flock for hens to lay eggs”. A rooster only matters if you want fertile eggs to hatch. Our page on laying without a rooster has more, if that’s the choice in front of you.

Bought Pullets and One Crows? What Each Hatchery Owes You

It happens, and the fine print decides what comes next. I read the policy pages of the three hatcheries quoted above. They’re not the same deal at all.

• Meyer Hatchery offers “a 100% Gender Accuracy Policy”. It says it “will refund the price of the chick(s) sent of the wrong gender”. You report it between 14 and 22 weeks, and “A photograph may be requested”.
• Murray McMurray Hatchery guarantees “90% accuracy on all sexed poultry”. If “more than 10% of your birds were sexed incorrectly”, you call Customer Service at (800) 456-3280 “for a refund or credit your account”. McMurray also asks for photos of the birds as they grow.
• Cackle Hatchery guarantees 90% too. Here’s its own example: “if you order 10 female chicks and receive 2 or more males, we will refund the cost of 1 chick at the female price”. The extras it packs in count toward that total. And claims have to come in before the birds are 8 months old.

So work out your own numbers before you pick up the phone. Say you ordered 10 pullets and one crows. Meyer refunds that one chick’s price. At McMurray and Cackle, one in ten is exactly 10%. That isn’t “more than 10%”, so it’s inside the guarantee. Cackle says so outright. Buyers should “be prepared for the possibility of receiving up to 10% males in their female chick order”.

The old version of this page got that part wrong. It quoted McMurray’s promise to “refund your money, replace your birds, or credit your account”. Those words are on McMurray’s page, sure. But they’re its guarantee for chicks lost in the first 48 hours. They aren’t its sexing guarantee.

Whichever hatchery it was, take the photos they ask for, at the age they ask for. Cackle wants “Full-side body shots (standing naturally)” at 10 to 16 weeks. A buyer once asked about two crowing birds in the comments under Meyer’s guide. Meyer asked for pictures that clearly show the saddle and hackle feathers, and the comb. Those are the same signs from the top of this page, which is handy.

These are the hatcheries’ own policies for chicks you ordered from them. A feed store’s chicks are the feed store’s question, so ask there.

Updated October 2026: checked again line by line against the sources below. The old version told a story about one keeper’s own rooster, and that’s gone. So is a line about lifting a bird of each sex. It quoted McMurray’s 48-hour guarantee as if it were the sexing guarantee. It said the hatcheries describe the breed in kinder words, when their own pages warn about roosters too. It gave only one of McMurray’s two egg figures. It said most birds show clear saddle feathers by 18 weeks, when Meyer’s 18 weeks is one bird. It also had a few lines no source backs, from how a Red stands at three weeks to how the first crows sound. And its one illustration is now a real photo, with five more added, each one credited under it.

Sources

• Small and Backyard Poultry (extension.org): Sexing Day-Old Chicks (Dr. Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky).
• Mississippi State University Extension: Sexing of Day-Old Chicks.
• Meyer Hatchery: What to Look For in Determining Gender in Young Chickens (March 2018).
• Meyer Hatchery: Rhode Island Red Day Old Chicks.
• Meyer Hatchery: Policies (the Gender Accuracy Policy).
• Murray McMurray Hatchery: Rhode Island Red.
• Murray McMurray Hatchery: The McMurray Hatchery Difference (its 90% Sexing Accuracy Guarantee).
• Cackle Hatchery: Rhode Island Red.
• Cackle Hatchery: Guarantees and Policies (Gender Selection Accuracy).
• The Livestock Conservancy: Rhode Island Red.
• Penn State Extension: Successfully Raising a Small Flock of Laying Chickens (Phillip J. Clauer; updated April 2016).

Sources checked October 26, 2026. The weight gap and the eggs-a-week sum are my arithmetic from these sources, and so is the 10-pullet example. We aren’t vets. If a bird of either sex looks sick or hurt, call a vet who sees poultry.

Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe