can you tell what chicks are at 2 weeks? we just bought 8 beautiful frizzle silkie bantams and we were just wandering if you could tell they are darling some already look like they have stuck their beak in a light socket!!!! i am a proud :D new mommy!!

By 6-8 weeks, most chickens can be sexed. You never know for 100% sure until that first egg or crow at around 6 months old. There may be differences from early on that you can pick up on that indicate which are male and female. When I had two "female" chicks (Sugar and Spice), one was larger, more boisterous, and colored a little different. He turned into a male. Whichever chick snatches that food first and acts the most nuts is almost guaranteed to be male!

:D i think that is true for more then just chickens!!! we have noticed some differences with colors on beaks and feet is this just the breed or determines sex?

It could be either. It depends on the breed.

My mothertongue is not English, so I have some difficulties in speaking and reading Endlish.

So I don't know whether I can tell the answer clearly:

In my hometown, people usually prefer hens more because hens can lay to earn more money for them. Their ways to distinguish a cock from a hen is------grasp the chick's claw to make the chick lifted upside down.

A cock will struggle to raise his head, while a hen has no actions. ;)

i have never heard that? i still do not know what my chickens are i know there is at least one rooster because we hear him crow but dont know who it is yet. i kinda have an idea though!! but i have never heard that way of telling the sex of a chicken!!

Yes, you surely never heard such a way.
It is from my hometown.

This way may make chicken feel a little uncomfortable. No one wants to be upside down.

I think there are a lot of traditional, old fashioned ways to supposedly sex chickens. Hanging the poor chick upside down can't be any more unreliable than most of them. Roosters, even when babies, are usually more feisty so it makes sense that they might be more apt to raise their heads when hung upside down. I certainly wouldn't rely on the method myself though. If you do it, be careful with them!

i dont think well try this!! in a personal experience we had with one of theese chicks we are now raising we had just watered them and they had all drank some then my daughter picked one up to put on her shoulder well in the proces she accidentally turned it upside down to put on her shoulder and water poured from its mouth and it almost drown we though w lost it but it finall came to so i dont recommend turning them upside down!! robin, do you have any idea why this might have happened?h

Hi Robyn and Jess, as what I said, the distinguishing way is only applied in my hometown. It seems the chicken in my hometown are much stronger than yours. :lol:

That is reasonable, just like a child in poor family usually grows stronger than one in a rich family.

There are absolutely other ways to distinguish them. Look at the pic above. The left should be a girl, while the right should be a boy.

A girl's eyes are more likeellipses while a boy's eyes more round.
A boy's beak is longer and sharper.
A boy's legs are thicker.

Some aunts in my hometown can distinguish their sex from rumps accurately! I didin't learn it.

Anyway, to put a woolen ball in the cage, a girl will study to knit, while a boy will play it as football. :lol:

If you went upside down with water in your mouth, you might also get some water down the wrong pipe and into the lungs.

I don't agree with a lot of Bigfats ideas but to each his own. I could see how a male might have stronger legs. By the time they are a few weeks old, I can usually guess males and females because males do grow larger faster. At birth though, with the last two chicks my hen hatched, the female was larger. A snake got her when she was a month old before I knew which sexes the babies would be. I actually thought the surviving baby, Speckles, was the girl in the beginning but alas, he's all rooster.