Telling the gender of chicks and other things

Earlier in April, I hatched out 36 chicks and bought ten more pullets from Runnings.
Since people are always wondering if their favorite chick will be a hen or rooster, I decided to make a post about it. These pictures were all taken before the storm.
One way to find a cockerel is to look at combs, like on this chick. (His comb is unusually large, even for a cockerel.) Pullets don't start getting much for combs until they're much older.

Here's a more normal looking cockerel. One way to tell he's a cockerel is because of his comb. He was also clucking for the young pullets whenever he found something to eat.

Another good way to tell is how their bodies develop. Some cockerels end up getting bigger than pullets but they have fewer feathers like this one does. (Note the normally feathered chicks in the background.)

Overall, it is a lot easier to tell what is a pullet and what is a cockerel if all the chicks are the same breed. With all my mix breeds, some tend to mature slower and that makes it harder to tell what gender they are.

Here's a picture of the chicks when they were younger and cuter.

The geese are also nesting. Here's a picture of a nest I found. The nest is two feet above the water.

We had a power outage on Saturday and Dad had to hook the generator up to the chicken coop to keep the chicks warm. DJ will post more details on that.

Jessi