Autosexing poultry breeds
The poultry purebreeds where you can tell girls from boys as soon as they hatch
“Autosexing” and “sex-linked” are two terms that broadly mean the same thing.
They’re used in breeding, to refer to chicks where you can accurately and reliably identify the sex of the chick as soon as it’s hatched and the down has fluffed up.
Autosexing
This is a PURE breed where the chicks can be sexed at hatch, and where the sexing carries though the offspring.
It includes all the ~bar breeds (Gold and Silver Legbar, Cream/Crested Legbar, Rhodebar, Cambar, Barnebar, etc), other well-known breeds like Plymouth Rock, Barnevelder, Welsummer, Rhode Island Red, and specific colours or patterns within breeds such as Cuckoo, Black-Breasted Red, & Silver Duckwing.
Sex-linked
This is a CROSS between breeds or colours within breeds, where the chicks can be sexed at hatch. The sexing does not carry through to the offspring.
It includes all the commercial layer varieties (ISA Brown, Hyline Brown, Lohmann Brown, Hisex, Bond/Barter Brown, Black and White, etc), as well as a range of easily-accessible crosses that anyone can do.
This article covers autosexing pure-breed chickens.
Please visit sex-linking for discussion of creating sex-linked crossbreed chickens.
Table of contents
What is an autosexing chicken?
Autosexing breeds are purebreeds whose offspring can be easily and reliably sexed as soon as the down has fluffed up.
“Autosexing” tends not to be applied to colour-linked crossings within pure breeds, because you have to be selective about which colours are bred together in order to produce the sex-linkage in the offspring.
It applies when the sex-linkage occurs with high reliability whenever you breed a male and female of that breed and colour together.
For chickens to be a purebreed, they:
Have a particular name
Have an entry in a Poultry Standard under that name.
Most countries have their own Standard, and you generally need to buy the whole book to read about them.
You can also read about breeds at the Open Poultry Standards.
Broadly match the characteristics outlined in the Standard, including feather colour and patterns, colour of leg, beak, comb, and wattles, “shape [type], growth, temperament, and shell-color of eggs produced” (from the Open Poultry Standards)
When bred with another bird of the same named breed, produces offspring that resemble the parents and matches the characteristics in the relevant Standard.
Might be called a “purebreed” or “pure bred”.
For more information on breeds, purebreeds, and crossbreeds, see “What breed is my chicken?”.
What breed is my chicken?
Why do people want to identify the sex at hatch?
One of the most common questions asked in poultry groups is “what sex is my chick?”. People want to know early for a number of reasons, most of which boil down to the unfortunate fact that roosters have traits that make them unwelcome in smaller backyard flocks.
Roosters crow. Many find the noise annoying, particularly at close range and constantly.
Many Council areas do not permit the keeping of roosters in suburban blocks, because of the risk of noise complaints from neighbours.Roosters don’t lay eggs. Many people keep chickens strictly for their eggs, and that’s fine.
Roosters fight with eachother. Multiple roosters in a flock will often fight with eachother if there are hens present.
It is possible to keep “bachelor flocks” of roosters only - but they will be very noisy.Roosters shag. To be blunt, they’re randy buggers. They mate whatever hens are available as often as possible.
The ideal proportion is one rooster to 7-12 hens. Any more than that can see hens injured or even killed by constant rooster attention.Roosters are tasty. Some people do grow out their cockerels deliberately, for eating purposes; the best way to do this is to separate cockerels from pullets as soon as possible, to prevent injuries and fights and to allow for a fattening diet.
Hens fetch a premium price. Many people sell their chicks fairly young, and sexed female chicks fetch a premium price for their age.
People will quite happily pay $AU10 or even more for guaranteed female day-old chicks, regardless of breed or crossbreed, with commensurate price increases as they get older.
So knowing what sex your chicks are, as soon as possible, allows you to make sensible decisions before you get too attached to - and spend time and money and resources on - the prettier, friendlier chicks (as cockerels invariably seem to be!).
If you have no plans to use the cockerels at all, it is - brutal as this is to consider - a waste of resources to raise them. You just get attached, which results in the rather sad “free to a good home NOT FOR THE POT” ads that come around every year.
The regrettable fact is that there is not a good home for every cockerel that’s hatched and raised.
What about vent-sexing?
In years gone by, people used “vent-sexing” to identify the sex of their day-old chicks. This is not related to autosexing or sex-linking.
Vent-sexing is a mechanical method that can be performed on any chick at day-old to identify the sex. It requires experience and expertise to get accuracy higher than guesswork, and can only be performed on chicks up to 24 hours.
The technique involves squeezing the vent so it pops open, allowing the sexer to see inside and look for the minuscule “bumps” that identify either male or female chicks.
It’s not, however, a very straightforward process. According to this Backyard Poultry article:
… there are 18 different shapes possible with a two female and two male shapes that will appear as close matches for the opposite sex. Essentially, the view reveals a shape much like a necklace with “beads” of different sizes, largest in the center. The males have a round/globe-like center “bead”; the females have a flat or concave center “bead.”
As day-old chicks are quite fragile, and the differences between the male and female chicks is highly contextual, the technique has a high risk of damaging the chick AND of getting it wrong in the hands of the inexperienced. Commercial hatcheries would employ these expert people to do the sexing, so they could raise only pullets for egg production purposes, and dispose of the male chicks.
The development of commercial crossbreeds with sex-linked chicks reduces the skill level required to identify cockerels, as well as reducing the risk of injury to the chicks. The hatcheries save significant money with higher accuracy, lower-skilled workers, and fewer unnecessary deaths.
So, what do we use instead?
In autosexing chicks, there will be one or more obvious things to look at. They’re easy to see with the unaided eye, don’t require any risky handling to make them visible, and very clearly and unequivocally identify either a female or male chick.
In all cases, these relate to features on a day-old chick, after it’s hatched and fluffed up. Many of these features will disappear within the first few days of hatching, and can’t be used reliably beyond that age.
They include:
Down colour. For eg, yellow pullets (female) and white cockerels (male).
Down pattern. For eg, a small white spot on the head (pullet) and large diffuse white patch (cockerel).
Relative sizes of wing feathers. For eg, irregular wing feathers (pullet) and same-sized feathers (cockerel). This does require a certain expertise to identify but, unlike vent-sexing, comes with a very low risk of damage to the chick.
Leg colour/pattern. For eg, dark legs (pullet) and light legs (cockerel).
What breeds are autosexing?
This is a fairly comprehensive list. It is, however, Australian-based, and doesn’t cover any breeds that are not readily found or known in Australia. There may be additional breeds around the world that could be included - please do let me know in the comments!
General ~bar breeds
These are breeds that have been created by following a very conscious breeding “recipe”. If followed exactly, the final result - some generations later - is a true breed, with its own entry in various Poultry Standards that breeds true in subsequent generations.
The first part of the name refers to the purebreed male bird. For example: Leghorn, Campine, Barnevelder, Rhode Island Red, and so on.
The second part - the ~bar - refers to a barred Plymouth Rock hen, which is essential for creating the sex-linkage in this particular breed. If there isn’t a barred Rock in the recipe somewhere, then it’s not a ~bar breed (noting that the Silver Legbar requires the creation of a Silver Cambar first, which crosses Silver Campine with Plymouth Rock).
Bar breeds I’ve found reference to include the following. Note that very few of these are bred in any regularity, particularly in Australia.
Brockbar. Buff Rock rooster. Lays brown or pinky eggs.
Barnebar. Barnevelder rooster. Lays brown eggs.
Brussbar - Gold and Silver. Brown or Light Sussex rooster. Lays cream or light-tinted brown eggs.
Cambar - Gold and Silver. Gold or Silver Campine rooster. Lays white eggs.
Dorbar - Gold and Silver. Gold or Silver Dorking rooster. Lays white or tinted eggs.
Legbar - Cream/Crested. Gold Legbar crossed with white Leghorn and cream Araucana (Have not yet found an exact “recipe” for this mix). Has a crest and small wriggly single comb. Lays blue eggs.
Legbar - Gold. Brown Leghorn rooster. Lays white eggs, no crest.
Legbar - Silver. Silver Cambar (see above) crossed with white Leghorn and Gold Legbar. Lays white eggs, no crest. (Have not yet found an exact “recipe” for this mix).
Rhodebar. Rhode Island Red rooster. Lays mid-brown eggs.
Welbar - Gold and Silver. Gold or Silver Welsummer rooster. Lays brown eggs.
Wybar - Gold and Silver. A cross of Wyandotte, Plymouth Rock and Brussbar. (Have not yet found an exact “recipe” for this mix). Tinted eggs.
The recipes always start with a standard barred-based sex-link cross.
Notes about the recipe
To “fix” the sex-linkage for subsequent generations, the entire “recipe” needs to be followed, strictly using and discarding the birds identified.
Once the “recipe” is completed, the birds will (mostly) lay eggs of the original male colour. Cream Legbars lay the blue eggs of the cream Araucana infusion.
The original recipe was found in the Backyard Poultry forums article on sex-link cross breeds. I found exactly the same one again in Adelaide Chicken Sitting Services: Creating a Cross Breed. It’s small and difficult to read and understand, so I thought I’d re-create it.
This is a very generic overview. The Gold Legbar recipe is in the Legbar section.
Note that I don’t know how this may apply to the Cream/Crested Legbar, Silver Legbar, or Wybar, as those three require a previously-created separate Bar breed to be added at one point - presumably at one of the green places.
Accessible/written version
Solid-colour or gold purebreed rooster is crossed with Barred Plymouth Rock hen. This results in:
Black unbarred pullets (do not use)
Black barred cockerels.
Black barred cockerel is crossed with a hen of the same breed and colour as the first rooster.
This results in :
Black barred and black unbarred pullets and cockerels (do not use)
Brown unbarred pullets (do not use)
Brown barred pullets
Brown barred cockerels.
Brown barred pullet is crossed with brown barred cockerel.
This results in:
Unbarred pullets (do not use)
Impure barred cockerels (do not use)
Pure cockerels
Pure pullets
Pure cockerels are crossed with pure pullets. This results in a pure ~Bar breed, and should continue to breed true from this point.
Gold Legbar
Legbars are good-looking birds, like a brown Leghorn with barring through the body.
They can be created using the “bar” recipe as follows.
Note that at the moment, the blue egg-laying Cream/Crested Legbar is more commonly known than the Gold, so when people refer to “Legbars”, they’re often referring to the Cream/Crested. This recipe will NOT work for Cream/Crested Legbars.
This also means that you need to be very careful about referring to photos of Gold Legbar adults or chicks; it’s very possible that they’re referring to Cream/Crested Legbars.
Accessible/written version
Brown Leghorn rooster is crossed with Barred Plymouth Rock hen. This results in:
Black unbarred pullets (do not use)
Black barred cockerels.
Black barred cockerel is crossed with a brown Leghorn hen.
This results in:
Black barred and black unbarred pullets and cockerels (do not use)
Brown unbarred pullets (do not use)
Brown barred pullets
Brown barred cockerels.
Brown barred pullet is crossed with brown barred cockerel.
This results in:
Unbarred pullets (do not use)
Impure barred cockerels (do not use)
Pure gold Legbar cockerels
Pure gold Legbar pullets
Pure gold Legbar cockerels are crossed with pure gold Legbar pullets. This results in a pure gold Legbar, and should continue to breed true from this point.
Identification of day-old chicks
Pullet. Generally, have a broad, very dark brown stripe or triangle extending over the head, neck and rump. Small, pale head spot. Clear eye barring. The edges of the stripe are clearly defined and should not be blurred and blending with the ground colour, which is dark brown. A light head spot should be visible but is usually small.
Cockerel. Much paler down shade. The pattern is blurred and washed out from head to rump. Have an indistinct light-coloured dorsal strip on a paler down shade.
Legbar pullet chick (my own). Note: a little older than day-old.
Standards and information
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Legbar topic link
Open Poultry Standards: Legbar
Cream/Crested Legbar
Araucana was crossed into Legbar to create an autosexing, blue egglaying bird. It differs from the Gold or Silver Legbar by having a crest, smaller wavy straight peacomb, and the blue eggs.
It’s also called “Cream” Legbar as the original versions contained the “cream” gene from using a cream Araucana, which provides a particular colour to the hackles. Early attempts at re-creating the Crested Legbar in Australia missed this gene; it was only introduced when Avgen imported the true Cream Legbar.
To re-create a true Cream/Crested Legbar, a cream Araucana is required.
Currently, when you see references to Legbar, it’s quite likely to be referring to Cream/Crested Legbars, which is somewhat annoying.
Identification of day-old chicks
Day-old chicks have a light patch on the top of the head.
Pullet chicks have a small light spot on the top of the head, with heavy dorsal striping.
Cockerel chicks have lighter dorsal striping, with a light yellow patch on the head. The down is much paler and silver.
Standards and information
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Legbar topic link
Open Poultry Standards: Legbar
Barred Plymouth Rock & Scots Grey
We specify “barred” because Rocks do come in a variety of colours and patterns, including White Rocks. The autosexing only applies to the barred version.
You can also use barred Rocks in any sex-link crossbreed, by putting a plain-coloured rooster over a barred hen; the barred “spot” on the head carries through this cross. They are also genetically silver, so can be used in gold/silver sex-link creation.
Scots Grey are a breed that comes only in a barred form. In theory, it should be autosexing in the same way. I haven’t found a lot about this, save for this Facebook post; I’d love to hear more if you know!
Identification of day-old chicks
All barred Rock chicks have a white spot on the back of the head.
Pullet chicks have a smaller, clean-edged white spot. They may also have a black “stain” down the front of the legs.
Cockerel chicks have a larger, fuzzy-edged white spot. They may have plain yellow legs.
Standards and information
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Plymouth Rock link
Open Poultry Standards: Plymouth Rock
Barnevelder, Welsummer, Dark Indian Game (Cornish), Brown Leghorn, Silver Leghorn
The chicks of these breeds have what’s called a “wild-type” down, with stripes along the back (the “dorsal” stripes) and “eyeliner” on the eyes.
Depending on the breed, look at both the eyeliner and the dorsal stripe. Some breeds may not have the eyeliner.
Identification of day-old chicks
Female chicks have an unbroken heavy line on the eye and a dark dorsal stripe extending over the head.
Male chicks have a lighter and broken eyeline, and lighter-coloured dorsal stripes, sometimes ending in a dot on the crown.
These are Welsummer chicks.
This characteristic may carry through crosses. If the chick has eyeliner and the striped “wild type” down, then it’s worth looking at the eyeliner for possible sexing. No guarantees, and don’t rely on it.
Standards and information
Barnevelder
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Barnevelder topic link
Open Poultry Standards: Barnevelder
Welsummer
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Welsummer Link
Open Poultry Standards: Welsummer
Dark Indian Game (Cornish)
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Indian Game
Open Poultry Standards: Indian Game
Brown Leghorn, Silver Leghorn
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Leghorn topic link
Open Poultry Standards: Leghorn
Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, buff Orpington
As adults, these breeds and colours are nearly the same all over. New Hampshires have black hackles, while Rhode Island Red have black in the flight feathers and tips of the tail. Orpingtons come in a range of colours - buff is a rich golden biscuitty colour. It’s found in other breeds as well, such as Pekin and Sussex, but it’s particularly spectacular on the larger, round, fluffy Orpingtons.
Identification of day-old chicks
They hatch as mid-brown chicks.
Cockerel chicks have a white spot, or off-white streaks, on the down over the wing web and on the belly.
Pullet chicks don’t have the spot/s, and have darker red down colour.
This spot is lost when the chick down is shed and replaced with feathers.
However, there is considerable normal variation in the size of the spot, so this isn’t always accurate between different strains of the breeds.
If you breed your own RIR or New Hampshire, you’ll probably learn the normal ranges for the spot, and be able to accurately sex your own birds at hatch.
Standards and information
Rhode Island Red
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Rhode Island Red
Open Poultry Standards: Rhode Island link
New Hampshire
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: New Hampshire
Open Poultry Standards: New Hampshire link
Buff Orpington
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Orpington link
Open Poultry Standards: Orpington
What colours or patterns are autosexing?
This section covers breeds that come in a range of colours and patterns, only some of which provide the autosexing capability.
This is a fairly comprehensive list. It is, however, Australian-based, and doesn’t cover any breeds that are not readily found or known in Australia. There may be additional breeds around the world that could be included - please do let me know in the comments!
Barred or cuckoo
In addition to the barred Plymouth Rock (treated separately above), many breeds have a variety with a barred or cuckoo pattern. This should (in theory) allow the offspring to be sexed at hatch, although the breeding background of the bird may cause the sexing to be inconsistent.
Breeds that have barred, also called “cuckoo”, patterns include the following.
List taken from the Open Poultry Standards. I’ve only listed breeds that I’ve heard of being in Australia.
Note that for breeds where the cuckoo patterning may have been recently re-created in Australian birds, the results may be inconsistent. This may include Marans and Araucana.
Araucana
Cochin
Dorking
Gamebirds
Japanese bantam
Leghorn
Marans
Orpington
Pekin
Plymouth Rock (see above)
Polish
Scots Grey
Transylvanian Naked Neck
Wyandotte
Identification of day-old chicks
Look for the presence/absence of a white patch on the head of otherwise black-feathered day-old chicks.
Pullets will have smaller or no spots (ie a completely dark head).
Cockerels will have a spot, or comparatively larger spots.
See Plymouth Rock above for an example.
It may take a generation or two before you’re confident with your particular birds, however, as the cuckoo patterning can often “hide” other colours, and those colours may make the down colouring and patterning behave differently.
Standards and information
Open Poultry Standards: Cuckoo
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Breed topic list
Black-Breasted Red & Silver Duckwing
These patterns are found in a range of hardfeather and softfeather breeds, including:
American Game
Araucana
Australian Game
Modern Game
Old English Game
Phoenix
Welsummer (Silver Duckwing only)
Identification of day-old chicks
The chicks of these breeds have what’s called “wild-type” down; the nature of the stripes along the back (“dorsal stripes”) can help identify gender in the day-old chicks.
Pullet chicks have a dark dorsal stripe running along the back to the crown.
Cockerel chicks have a lighter dorsal stripe ending in a dot at the crown.
Standards and information
American Game
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: American Gamefowl Facebook topic link
Open Poultry Standards: American Game
Araucana
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Araucana Facebook topic link
Open Poultry Standards: Araucana
Australian Game
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Australian Game Facebook topic link
Open Poultry Standards: American Game
Modern Game
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Modern Game link
Open Poultry Standards: Modern Game
Old English Game
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Old English Game link
Open Poultry Standards: Old English Game
Phoenix
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Phoenix link
Open Poultry Standards: Phoenix
Welsummer
Exhibition Poultry Facebook group: Welsummer Link
Open Poultry Standards: Welsummer
Resources
There are many, many resources out there on this topic. These are the ones that have specifically been mentioned or used in the production of these articles.
Backyard Poultry forums: sex-link cross breeds. The article that started it all.
Adelaide Chicken Sitting Services: Creating a Cross Breed.
Book: Exhibition Poultry by Rick Kemp, pg 35-36.
Backyard Poultry magazine: How to Sex Chicks: What Does and Doesn’t Work
Cackle Hatchery: 22 Autosex Breeds of Chickens and Geese. An article by the legendary Gail Damerow.
Cluckin.net. Sexing chicks. 10 ways that work and 8 that do not.
Poultry Keeper: Autosexing Poultry.
Poultry Extension: Sexing Day-old Chicks.
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Do you breed your own autosexing poultry? Have you opinions on this? Have I got something wrong? Let me know!