Can you feather sex Rhode Island Reds?

[cchardwick]

I've been reading up on sexing baby chicks as soon as they hatch and I've just found out that sexing by the length of the wing feathers only works in certain breeds of chickens, not all. Does anyone know if Rhode Island Reds fall in this category? The other option is vent sexing and that is very difficult and even professional hatcheries hire professionals because to vent sex their chicks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

As I understand it, feather sexing works in a similar way to sex linking. One strain of birds is bred to another strain of birds. These strains are developed precisely to give a short versus long feather as the sex indicator. The fact that it is a RIR isn't important. Have the parent strains used been bred for feather sexing is.
True bred RIR are not feather sexed. Perhaps some hatchery somewhere has bred two strains of utility red birds for feather sexing, but I've not heard of it. Sorry, but that's all I've got.

 

[cmfarm]

I concur.