Sexing chicks

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Has anyone heard of this technique? The nice man who ran the chick project at our school told me about it.... Hold the chick by the nape of its neck between your thumb and forefinger, wait about 45 seconds, if the chick keeps its legs up it is a hen, if they drop them down it is a rooster. He showed me his technique and swore that it was accurate. I am curious if anyone else has heard of it.
 
JD123 said:
Has anyone heard of this technique? The nice man who ran the chick project at our school told me about it.... Hold the chick by the nape of its neck between your thumb and forefinger, wait about 45 seconds, if the chick keeps its legs up it is a hen, if they drop them down it is a rooster. He showed me his technique and swore that it was accurate. I am curious if anyone else has heard of it.
Click to expand...
It's another of the old wives tales regarding chicken sexing - and, like the other old wives tales, has a 50/50 shot at being right for any given bird. There is no scientific backing for the theory that would be related to gender.
 
Ok so I have been researching sexing via feathers. I found a website that showed pit's and the method was pretty darn close to 100%. Here is a pic
400
 
The knee with more featherI no known her tail,legs, and wings us the hen and the one with less feathers is the rooster. I'm pretty sure of this because my male is very aggressive already!
 
So, maybe everyone else knows this, and it will be a post that will make you think, well duh, of course. Still, I thought I would throw this out there from my observations.

I have found that of the roosters we have ended up with in the three groups of chicks we have gotten all had one glaring similarity. In each case the roosters of the bunch were much more social even when just a day or so old. What I mean is that the roos without fail would come up to my finger when I placed it in the brooder. Perhaps it is the beginnings of their roo behavior, protecting and defending. Either way, every single chick that has behaved this way right from the start have all been roos, and none of those that didn't behave this way ever turned out to be roos. We've had a total of four roos out of 18 chicks and three different groups, so, the results have been consistent. With our last group I was so sad to observe one of our two day old austrolorps being so social and coming up to my hand when I put it in the brooder box. I was hoping I was wrong, because she was so sweet and pretty, and everyone loved her. But, alas, she turned into the most beautiful young roo.

Anyone have a similar observation.
 
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teria said:
So, maybe everyone else knows this, and it will be a post that will make you think, well duh, of course.  Still, I thought I would throw this out there from my observations.

I have found that of the roosters we have ended up with in the three groups of chicks we have gotten all had one glaring similarity.  In each case the roosters of the bunch were much more social even when just a day or so old.  What I mean is that the roos without fail would come up to my finger when I placed it in the brooder.  Perhaps it is the beginnings of their roo behavior, protecting and defending.  Either way, every single chick that has behaved this way right from the start have all been roos, and none of those that didn't behave this way ever turned out to be roos.  We've had a total of four roos out of 18 chicks and three different groups, so, the results have been consistent.  With our last group I was so sad to observe one of our two day old austrolorps being so social and coming up to my hand when I put it in the brooder box.  I was hoping I was wrong, because she was so sweet and pretty, and everyone loved her.  But, alas, she turned into the most beautiful young roo.  

Anyone have a similar observation. 
Click to expand...


Yes. Absolutely, if the can't tell by feathers or visible comb coming in, I KNOW they are male by behavior.

My cockerel chicks are always cheeky, curious, and ready to hop right into my hand. They are easy for me to spot by movement alone. They're proud and protective over broodmates from day one, it seems.


I think it's because they KNOW they'll be dinner if they don't get on my good side from hatch lol, because they do. :D I'm a sucker for the ones with personality, and cockerels fit the bill there ;)
 
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