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Hope someone can help me. Am due to go and pick up 4 hens tomorrow . When I rang the really nice lady about them, she said that she's still unsure of the sex of the Black Orpingtons and that it would be better to wait another week. Unfortunately can't make next weekend, so am going tomorrow & she's promised to swap if it turns out to be a boy. So, what I desperately need is any hints or tips to help me choose the Black Orpington most likely to be a girl!

If you can, tonight, have a look on some poultry sites and see if you can find any pics of both sexes of orpingtons. That might give you a clue regarding their combs, wattles,tails and feet I believe! Also their back neck feathers. Good luck.

A friend of mine always reckoned that it was easiest to tell when they were still pretty small, because hens grow tail feathers at an earlier age than cockerels, but once past that state, you have to wait a long time to be certain.....

The larger and darker the comb + wattles the more likely to be male, the best way is the shape of the feathers around the neck. Girls are rounded at the ends, boys are more pointed

We have orps and they are lovely - hatched last year unfortunatley 2 of the 5 were male so had to be re-homed. Hens are lovely though and very comical and motherley.
My only warning is that they are prone to becoming broody and it lasts weeks.
Good luck

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Hi everyone
THanks loads for the help you all offered. As it turns out this little girl (boy?) is only about 10 weeks old, so I don't know if that helps
The breeder picked out the one with the pinkest comb and wattles and the roundest bottom.
As it turned out, we also ended up with a Blue Splash Orpington, who a fair bit older and bigger, but she's very sweet and definitely a girl, in spite of her huge grey legs.
Anyone up for a definitive guess as to whether the we're going to have eggs or not from the little black one?

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Check the feathers on the back just before where the tail starts. Rounded - pullet, long and thin - cock. If you have got a definate female to compare it to it should be resonably easy to tell (she says -ha ha) Orpingtons are one of those breeds which are a real swine to sex right up until POL

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