The colours of our chicks are just stunning. In having so many different breeds and cross breeds amongst the hens plus two quite different cockerels (an Indian Game and a Brahma cross), we do produce a variety of youngsters. Sometimes we can tell who the mum is but usually it is an educated guess. We can however usually tell who the dad is. The Indian Game chicks are stockier and usually have lacey type patterning and the Brahma offspring will often sport feathering on their legs.
Major decisions need to be made in the next month or so, as to how many and which birds we choose for the freezer. We usually sell our hens and have the cockerels for meat but if we can find either a registered poultry slaughterman or a poultry abbatoir, we may well put some of the females in the freezer too. In theory, we should get more meat from the hens.
All supermarket chickens are hens as the cockerels are dispatched as day olds: such is the commercial world. Smallholders on the other hand tend to grow on their cockerels for meat as hens are more valuable to sell as egg layers. Even our cross breeds will usually sell for the price of a bag or two of feed!