sexing baby chick

Congrats on your new chicks!  It's so exciting!

I think it's pretty difficult for the average person to accurately sex chicks.  You will probably have to wait until they are a few weeks old to get an idea.

Maybe others will give you some other helpful info.

Good luck!!

By now it is to late to sex it by the wing.  and then people at the hatcheries do it by organs, but you have to be trained.  but for future refrence take the wing and spread it out if there are 2 layers of feathers/down=female, 1 layer of feather/down=male.

                                        good luck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by billyb 

By now it is to late to sex it by the wing.  and then people at the hatcheries do it by organs, but you have to be trained.  but for future refrence take the wing and spread it out if there are 2 layers of feathers/down=female, 1 layer of feather/down=male.

                                        good luck!

Will This work for all breeds of chickens? 

Yes, this works for all chicks that I know of.

Feather sexing will work for all breeds, as far as I am aware. It has held try for my 1-3 day olds since I learned how to do it 3 years ago and hasn't let me down yet-even on batam breeds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by major 

 

Will This work for all breeds of chickens? 

 

It won't work on all breeds, no. It depends on genetics. From what I understand, the rooster has to have a slow feathering gene, and the hen has to have a fast feathering gene. Don't ask me to tell you what breeds that works on, though. =P

it is about 90% accurate...there is some breeds that can't be feather sexed and have to be vent sexed.

Feathersexing is tremendously misunderstood on this site.  It requires that the father be pure for "fast" feathering" and the mother "slow" feathering.  That way, the males get a fast from their father and a dominant slow from their mother and will be slow feathering.  The females get a fast from their father and nothing from their mother, so they will be fast feathering.  But, just like red sex links, once that initial cross is made to produce sex links, it is done.  You cannot use the next generation and get sex links. 

If you look at the bottom of Tadkerson's first post on this thread, you can see Tadkerson's write-up about it. 

Tadkersons Sex Link Thread
http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

I've seen many posts on this forum where people claim to be able to sex chicks of certain breeds by their feathers at hatch.  I've yet to see an explanation of why that works.  I am constantly surprised in chicken genetics because there is often something else causing an effect other than the simple straight-forward explanation, and that may again be true in this case.  But, if that is the case, it is not the feathersexing gene doing it.  Until someone can explain what what the genetic mechanism is causing that, I am going to remain extremely skeptical that it works, other than when the father is pure for fast and the mother for slow.

From: Ridgerunner