Sexing at fledging?

20 Sep 2011, 14:02

Had 3 young RCCB's out the nest the other day, and noticed today (now that they are out in the open aviary rather than hiding in the brush) that one seems to be quite a bit more blue than the others. I know avishoot had a strain where young cocks fledged with partial red cheek patches, but has anyone else noticed these colour differences? I'll try and get some pics later, cloudy and drizzling here at the moment.

20 Sep 2011, 21:43

from what I have seen and been told , is that you can tell the differance as the males will be a darker blue , but it has been a while since I had cordons...pete

20 Sep 2011, 22:05

Yeah I did some more reading of my few different sources (much better than working on assignments!!!

) and they agree. WOOT for a spare hen!!!

09 Dec 2011, 18:01

I think Matty (???) mentioned that blue down the flanks of fledglings may indicate cocks. I've never taken any notice before but today I caught up 5 young ones. Only 1 of 5 has blue down the flanks. Hopefully this means I've got 4 hens! Is this a recognised method of sexing them?

09 Dec 2011, 18:38

Yup, that was me, but it's based on my minimal experience of one (the current) clutch of three. Two are the same, the other has more intense blue which spreads down both flanks.
Their beaks are starting to change colour, so we'll see soon if this method is correct in this small sample (n=3).
If we pool our results, we could make n=8!

Are you almost ready for a (related) pair?

09 Dec 2011, 19:08

Well this has been accurate for me. The one that was darker at fledging is a cock, and the lighter 2 are hens. Almost fully coloured now, and looking great!

09 Dec 2011, 19:59

mattymeischke wrote: If we pool our results, we could make n=8!

Plus spanna's 3 (n=11) and there's another one I couldn't catch today, so n=12. I doubt a statistically significant sample but getting there!

mattymeischke wrote:Are you almost ready for a (related) pair?

Happy to swap a few whenever you're ready.

spanna wrote:Well this has been accurate for me. The one that was darker at fledging is a cock, and the lighter 2 are hens. Almost fully coloured now, and looking great!

Not sure if mine are darker. It is obvious that one has blue extending down both flanks, whilst the others have no blue in this area. I'll take a photo tomorrow as they're in a small flight cage.

10 Dec 2011, 14:18

Here's some photos...

A possible hen

RCCBHen.jpg

And a possible cock...

RCCBCock.jpg

However, as I caught 6 young ones I doubt all were from the same clutch. It's likely I missed catching one last time and the pic of the cock is this one - otherwise I've got 5/6 hens!

10 Dec 2011, 14:43

Nice.
Today I noticed some colour coming in to the cheeks of my putative cock.