Sexing Pheasant Chicks |
By the time Golden and Lady Amherst's chicks are three months old it is very easy to tell the cocks and hens apart. It is of course more difficult if all chicks are the same sex to tell which they are. Although the cocks will not have most of their colours until well into the following year they are already more colourful than the hens.
The Golden cock will have a reddish rust colour on his back and the base of his tail. His eyes will also be changing colour. They will be starting to look bluish before becoming greener and later will finally end up yellow. The Golden hen however will have no hint of red in her feathering and her eyes will stay brown. The legs of the cock will also often be a brighter yellow than that of the hen although this in itself will not be conclusive evidence of a male bird.
The Amherst cock will usually have slightly stronger markings than the hen mainly because there is more of a contrast in the colours. His crown feathers and possibly others on his back and wings may well be showing a slight tinge of metallic green. He also has white on his tail which is absent on the young hens tail. The crown of the hen will be a hazel brown. The most definite change is again in the eye colour. The hens eyes will stay brown but the cocks will be much paler eventually becoming a very light blue. There is usually a noticeable difference in size between the Lady Amherst's with the cock being larger than the hen. Of course this will only be obvious if the chicks are of roughly the same age.
You have to wait a while to see the difference between male and female Monal chicks but by the time they are 4 months old the cocks will have a black throat whereas the hens will stay white. A subtle way to tell the difference a bit earlier is by studying the white streaks on the breast of the birds. The white on the hen is finer than that on the male bird which, although still linear in shape, is quite blotchy. Another sign to look for is a wider tail on the cock Monal.
The cocks of the Silver Pheasants will have fine white lines showing firstly on the tail and then on the wings. This should be noticeable by about three months of age. Within the next couple of months the new feathers coming through will show much more of the detailed markings which are so beautiful on the adult cock. The hen has a crest similar to the cock but she is fairly plain with medium brown feathers although the breast feathers are paler and almost look dusted with white chalk.
The male Silver Pheasant can look very similar to some hens for a while but by the time they are around 3 months more of the cocks pattern should be showing. Hens can be quite variable with some being very plain but others can look similar to the cock for some time. The pattern on the hens breast however will always be low whereas the male will start to show markings right up to the throat. There will also be spurs developing which will be much bigger on the cock pheasant chicks and stay very small on the hen.
Eared Pheasants can be difficult to sex and it will require a little patience. The main difference is the spurs. The cock's spurs will be much more noticeable and even when still small will be stumpier in shape, much rounder, than the hen's narrow spurs. Usually the hen's spurs will stay very small hardly growing at all but this is not always the case. They are however always much less conspicuous than a cock's prominent spurs.
The other differences are minor ones. The hens tend to have a slightly smaller head and less of the red facial wattles. This can be unreliable as sometimes no difference can be seen until the birds
are almost fully grown. The cocks will often be braver and more forward in their behaviour. Again however, this can be deceiving if there are a few birds kept together, as there will always be a more dominant cock which the others are likely to retreat from, at least a little.