Are my chickens hens or rooster?

[*Princess*]

I have 5 baby chicks and their mother.  I was wondering if anyone could tell me if they're hens or roosters.  I have pictures on my website which is www.freewebs.com/gemschickens and they're 8 weeks old today.  If you could leave a message in my guestbook on my website or on here, that would be great! :)

[Clanad]

There's no practical way of knowing until they mature.  Commercial poultry businesses have highly trained people that can determine the sex of young chickens, but even that is an inexact science.  Some breeds are even more difficult to tell differences until they are several months old.  By the way, your link doesn't work... Best of luck!

[woofgang]

http://www.freewebs.com/gemschickens

hope this link works for you!

[lalalaland]

id say that madge junior looks like a boy. the rest from what i can see look like girls.u can tell by looking at the length of their back feathers from when they r a few days old but uve got to be pretty experienced!

[*Princess*]

Hey thanks for the fixing the link woofgang!  :o)  Also thanks for the replies Clanad and lalalaland!

I've been told all sorts so far from having all boys to having 4 girls and 1 boy!  They're 8 weeks old today so it shouldn't be too long until I can tell for sure, I just wondered if I could find out earlier, as I'm giving the boys back to the farmer, as I'm not breeding from them, just having them as pets, and I don't think the neighbours would be too pleased with a 4am rooster wake up call!  Really I'd love 2 girls, so they can keep eachother company, but anymore than that is just a bonus!

Thanks for any help!

Gem

x

[woofgang]

You are welcome. To make a link work, you need to put in th http:// bit at the beginning

[Fern57]

this might help.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~greggles1/sexing.html