# Tail feathers and sexing - it worked again



## kudzuvine (Aug 11, 2011)

Just wanted to pass on how I sex my chicks. An old farmer told me this and so far it has been pretty accurate - about 98%. My last hatch, only three survived. When they were about 3 weeks old, or when tail feahers emerge, the ones with the tail feathers (longer) are hens and the shorter are roosters. Decided two were hens (Honey/RIR and PoPo/copper maran) and they are. Milo (RIR) was questionable, but he is a she. Ya'll might want to give it a try. 3 out of 3 were hens - that doesn't happen to often.


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## eclipchic (Oct 24, 2010)

I've found this to be true with mine too. Out of 8 chicks we correctly were able to sex 5 as pullets and 2 as cockerels with one that we were unsure about. I found that at 2 wks only the pullets had both the start of wing feathers and tail feathers, but even at 1 week you could see the pullet chicks getting their wing feathers first....it just wasn't as certain as at 2 wks


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