Main Takeaways:
- You can try feather sexing as early as 3 days
- Look for prominent combs at about 4 weeks (breed dependent)
- Crowing at an early age is a strong sign (rarely alpha hens crow as adults but not as chicks under 16 weeks old)
More reading:
Maat van Uitert is a backyard chicken and sustainable living expert. She is also the author of Chickens: Naturally Raising A Sustainable Flock, which was a best seller in it’s Amazon category. Maat has been featured on NBC, CBS, AOL Finance, Community Chickens, the Huffington Post, Chickens magazine, Backyard Poultry, and Countryside Magazine. She lives on her farm in Southeast Missouri with her husband, two children, and about a million chickens and ducks. You can follow Maat on Facebook here and Instagram here.
![Molting Mania: Dealing With Feather Loss & Winter Care [Podcast]](https://thefrugalchicken.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/molting-feature-min.jpg)
