I sent off blood samples to have our current batch of chicks DNA tested. No, I have not completely lost my mind. I decided to have our chickens tested after reading on several chicken forums that you can have your chicks sexed (you can find out their gender) using a feather test or a simple blood test (using a couple of drops of blood when you clip their nail). We are thinking we may keep 1-2 hens this time (and keep another 1 from the next hatching), but we need to make certain they are hens. Last round of hatching chicks we ended up with 3 roosters and 1 hen. We didn’t know their sex until the crowing began. What we also didn’t know is that with silkies typically only the dominate rooster will crow. However, once you get rid of the dominate rooster within a few days you will find out if you have a new dominate rooster (or if you have remaining hens only). You will know because the new dominate rooster will start crowing. This happened to us, and as you can imagine we had to scramble to get rid of three roosters, each just days apart. They all ended up going to the same home and thank you to their new owner who will was willing to drive to our home every couple of days to pick up the new culprit of our neighborhood noise. I don’t want to put our neighbors through that again (I did get an email from a neighbor about the crowing). Therefore, we are having our chickens DNA tested! Its not terribly expensive. By giving me peace of mind that we won’t have any crowing it is worth the price of $11 per chicken. On Monday I sent their test paperwork and their blood samples (on a piece of paper) for testing at http://iqbirdtesting.com/
Now for the fun! You get to guess the sex of our chickens. Whoever guesses all correct, or the most correct will win a $20 Starbucks gift card (if there is a tie, the first who commented wins). You can comment on the Living Joy Daily Facebook group page on the thread for this posting. The chickens all look similar to me, so your guess is as good as mine!
Here are some tips on guessing the sex of silkies-
Below are the photos of each of the chickens so you can guess their gender, we will refer to them by the color of the band on their leg (this is how I differentiated them on my paperwork for the lab). The band colors are blue, yellow, pink, white, and black.
Blue
Yes, that is a bug in his/her beak.
This chicken is our smallest. He/She was about half the size of the other chickens when born. This one is considered a paint Silkie because of the speckled coloring.
Yellow
This chicken is a white silkie. Not the biggest, or the smallest, about the same as 2 other chickens we have.
Pink
This is our other all white silkie. Also, not the biggest, or smallest, about the same size as 2 other chickens from this hatching.
White
This chicken is black/dark grey in color. He/She is the biggest and also acts like a bully (according to my husband).
Black
This is chicken #5 and He/She is a grey paint. This one is the same size as both of the white chickens.
Here is a video clip, so you can get a view of the chicks:
So what were the results ?
Only one female in the whole group! It was one of the solid white ones. We kept her, named her Marshmallow and gave away the roosters to a good home. Cathy S. From Wisconsin guessed the results exactly right, so she was our winner!
More specifically, it was the white chicken with the yellow band on its leg that is a female. All others are male.