Hen or Rooster? Pullet or Cockerel Checker

Quick answer: on an ordinary chick you usually can’t tell before 4 to 6 weeks, when a cockerel’s comb and wattles start to grow bigger and redder than his sisters’ (Mississippi State Extension). The sign that settles it is feathers: only males grow saddle feathers — long, pointed ones in front of the tail — and a male’s neck feathers are longer, pointed and narrow where a pullet’s are rounded (University of Kentucky). Meyer Hatchery sees them “barely begin” at 10 to 12 weeks and clearly by 18. The exceptions are sex-link crosses and strains bred for feather sexing, which you can sort the day they hatch. Put in the age and what you can see, and the checker says which way it points and how far to trust it.

What you can see, and from when

Most of what people swear by is real — it just shows up later than they want it to. In order:

• Comb and wattles, from 4 to 6 weeks. Mississippi State: “In males, the combs and wattles will become larger than those on females and the head will become more angular and masculine looking.” Compare the bird with its own hatch-mates of the same breed; a comb on its own tells you little, and Kentucky adds that “The timing of this varies from breed to breed.”
• Neck and saddle feathers, from 10 to 18 weeks. Kentucky: “The males have longer, more pointed, and narrower hackle feathers (located on the neck). The hackle feathers typically have a rounded oval shape in females.” And the one to look for: “only the males have saddle feathers.” Meyer Hatchery, which sexes birds for a living, calls these “the one defining difference that is the most accurate in determining gender across most of the chicken breeds.” A cockerel that doesn’t show them at 12 weeks may well show them at 16. Their advice is to “check back in another couple of weeks.”
• Crowing, whenever it happens. Kentucky: “The males switch from chirping, which is common to all chicks, to attempting to crow.” That’s a strong sign, not a certain one. Meyer: “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.” If a bird crows and shows no saddle feathers at 18 weeks, believe the feathers.

Not hearing a crow proves nothing, and neither does a missing saddle feather at 12 weeks. The checker won’t count either as evidence of a pullet until the age where a cockerel would be showing it.

The chicks you can sort on the day they hatch

Some birds are bred so the sexes hatch looking different. Kentucky explains it, and it only works one way round:

• Black sex-links (Black Star): a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster over a Barred Rock hen. “At hatch, both sexes have dark-colored down, but the males have a white spot on the top of their head.” Grown, “the females … are black and red and non-barred, while the males are black and white barred.” Swap the parents and it stops working: “Crossing a barred male with a non-barred female will not work.”
• Red sex-links (Red Star, Golden Comet): “Gold males are mated to silver females. The resulting males will be silver, while the females will be gold.”
• Purebred Barred Rocks: a large white spot on the head at hatch for a male, a smaller, narrower one for a female — “about 80% accurate,” Kentucky says. Good odds, not a promise.
• Feather-sexed strains: open a day-old chick’s wing. “In the females, the covert feathers are always shorter than the primary feathers. In the males, the covert feathers are always as long as, or longer than, the primary feathers.” But Mississippi State is clear that this works only in strains bred for it: “Most strains (breeds) of chickens do not have these feather sexing characteristics and feathering of both sexes appear identical.” On a feed-store mix, the wing tells you nothing.

Breeds that make it harder

A pea comb — the low, three-ridged comb on Brahmas and Easter Eggers — is small on both sexes, so the comb sign is weaker. Kentucky: “For some of the breeds with small combs, such as those with pea combs, distinguishing the sexes may be more difficult.” On a Silkie the fluffy feathers hide the hackle and saddle difference altogether, and Sebright and Campine males are “hen feathered” — they grow a hen’s plumage. On those, the checker doesn’t read the feathers, and you are back to comb, size and crowing. Crested breeds give you one extra sign: a female’s crest is a soft, rounded topknot and a male’s is pointed and spiky.

Bought as pullets and it’s crowing?

It happens, and it’s allowed. Hatcheries sex chicks by hand at a day old, and they don’t promise to be right every time. Murray McMurray Hatchery puts it in writing: “We guarantee 90% accuracy on all sexed poultry.” So in a box of ten “pullets”, one cockerel is still inside the guarantee. It’s worth a call to the hatchery or the feed store. And if you are wondering when the real pullets will start paying their way, the first egg calculator turns a hatch date into the weeks to watch.

What doesn’t work

The egg-shape trick, the needle on a string, and candling for sex are all old wives’ tales. Kentucky: “the chances of being right using these traditional or folk methods are fifty-fifty,” and “If the egg is fertile, you can’t determine whether the embryo is male or female.” Vent sexing is real, but it’s a hatchery job. Mississippi State: “The training to be a chick sexer is so difficult and lengthy that the average poultry owner finds it unjustifiable.” For everybody else, Kentucky’s advice is the honest one: “The most accurate way to sex chicks is to watch them grow.”

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