How to sex the baby chicks?

[kovalines]

I was reading some posts here and I saw that people buy newborn chick knowing if they are hens or roosters. Who can I sex the little chicks?

 

[Ridgerunner]

A few breeds are sort of self-sexing. A standard one of these is that the spot on a Barred Rock male is larger than the spot on a Barred Rock female. There area few others that are self-sexing breeds but really not many.

There are three ways due to sex link genetics. If the parents have specific genes, then you can tell the sex of the chick at hatch. If the father has the gold gene and the mother has the silver gene, the male chicks will be yellow and the females reddish. These are called red sex links. If the male is not barred and the female is barred, and the down is a color that you can see the spot, the males will have a light spot on their head and the females will not have the spot. These are called black sex links, though they really don't have to be black. Or if the father has only the fast feathering gene and the female has the slow feathering gene, you can tell sex at hatch by looking at tthe length of the wing feathers. This is called feather sexing. All three of these methods require the parents to have specific genes. If they don't, these methods don't work.

Then you get vent sexing. Specially trained people can look inside the vent of a chick and tell if it is male or female by the genetalia. This method is not as sure as the others and it is not generally used on bantams, just full sized chicks, because it is so hard to see in the tiny bantams. The hatcheries use the vent sexing method and usually guarantee 90% success rate.

Most chicks cannot be sexed by us. We don't have the skills to vent sex and most chicks are not set up for sex link sexing. Sorry.

 

[Fred's Hens]

A few breeds are sort of self-sexing. A standard one of these is that the spot on a Barred Rock male is larger than the spot on a Barred Rock female. There area few others that are self-sexing breeds but really not many.
There are three ways due to sex link genetics. If the parents have specific genes, then you can tell the sex of the chick at hatch. If the father has the gold gene and the mother has the silver gene, the male chicks will be yellow and the females reddish. These are called red sex links. If the male is not barred and the female is barred, and the down is a color that you can see the spot, the males will have a light spot on their head and the females will not have the spot. These are called black sex links, though they really don't have to be black. Or if the father has only the fast feathering gene and the female has the slow feathering gene, you can tell sex at hatch by looking at tthe length of the wing feathers. This is called feather sexing. All three of these methods require the parents to have specific genes. If they don't, these methods don't work.
Then you get vent sexing. Specially trained people can look inside the vent of a chick and tell if it is male or female by the genetalia. This method is not as sure as the others and it is not generally used on bantams, just full sized chicks, because it is so hard to see in the tiny bantams. The hatcheries use the vent sexing method and usually guarantee 90% success rate.
Most chicks cannot be sexed by us. We don't have the skills to vent sex and most chicks are not set up for sex link sexing. Sorry.

X2

 

[kovalines]

Oh, now i got it! I was kinda excited for sexing my chicks when I finish the incubator I'm making here, but you broke this dream...

Just kidding! Alright, now I really think it will be impossible for me, because will incubate farm eggs, I mean, they do not have a specific breed. We call them ''caipira'' here in Brazil. Is there a specific name in English for the chickens raised in farms, that don't have a breed?

Thank you!
Artur

 

[chickensinwasillaAK]

my mixed chicks I call mutts since they are a mixture of a few different breeds. I've got 4 Roos with 45 hens, who knows who taps who during the day so best bet is it'll be a chick of some color, hence the nickname mutt.

 

[OkChickens]

Around here we call them Barnyard Chickens. A lot of people have mix breed chickens. There isn't a way to really feather sex them. Vent sexing is very difficult and it is hard to learn.

Nate

 

[bestpractice]

"Myth Buster" post.

Well, everyone makes this sound so mysterious, like you need special talents that God only gives to a chosen few, but in reality it is actually quite easy. See the links below. Sex linked is fun, and I did purchase Delaware and New Hampshire so I could do that, but then I found out how easy it is to sex the chickens when they are a day old -- they have to be standard chicks and under a few days old to do it the easy way (looking at wing feathers). Oh, and there is a great article on how to pick eggs that have more pullets vs roosters. So, if you are wondering why you received more roosters in your egg order, or in your day old chick order that was supposed to be "straight run", now you know why. The person who sold them to you knew how to pick 'em. Phooey... Don't be fooled again!

The video above gives credibility to the video below (for the skeptics, like me, in the crowd). The video below is VERY good -- short, fast, easy, clear and simple steps.

And if you absolutely feel you want to "vent sex" your chicks, you can do that too. It isn't as easy, and it's yucky. If you have bantams this is how ---

And for picking eggs that statistically have more pullets, than roosters... (I like being able to count my chickens before they are hatched

)

http://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-farming/buying-fertilized-chicken-eggs-zmaz74zhol.aspx

 

[kovalines]

Now my dream is back!
I'll try to sex some and try the egg format method! I hope it works! Have tryed the egg method? Did it really work?
This egg sexing method will help a lot, because in a few weeks I'll go to a chicken farm to buy some Giant Indio eggs. I don't know if there is this breed in U.S. or U.K. The adult rooster get get until 3.5 ft from feet to the beak!
I think the vent method is a little hard, so I'll try the feathers one.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Those videos were interesting. That's one of the better feather-sexing video "how-to's" I've seen. Thanks for sharing.

If you look at the first post in this thread, you can see how to set up the parents genetically for Red Sex Links, Black Sex Links, and Feather-Sexing. There are several videos and articles about feather-sexing. Many omit the basic step that the father has to be pure for the fast-feathering gene and the mother has to have the dominant slow-feathering gene.

Tadkerson’s Sex Link Thread
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

Mike Rowe did a show at a chicken hatchery about vent-sexing. You might find this interesting.

Do you eally think if it was as easy as egg shape to predetermine sex that the hatcheries would be wasting their money hatching eggs that would produce the wrong sex? There are several myths out there about how to produce more pullets or more cockerels from a hatch. The commercial hatching industry that has spent millions researching it do not use any of them. Think about that a minute.

Kovalines, by all means try it. You have nothing to lose and you have a 50-50 chance it will actually work with each egg. But remember that repeat-ability is the key. I once got 7 pullets out of 7 random chicks. The odds of that happening are less than 1%. With most of my hatches of around 15 to 20 chicks, I usually get about 2/3 of one sex or the other, though some are pretty close to 50-50. Sometimes it is more males and sometimes it is more females. It is just odds.

I googled the Giand Indio chicken and got nothing. My guess is that it is a breed that has been developed in your country. Do you have a link that shows a picture, even if the write-up is not in English?

Our largest breed is the Jersey Giant. They get really large but they mature very slowly. If you are raising them for meat they are not really efficient at food to meat conversion and bot realy efficient in feed to egg conversion either. But I don't know the characterisitics of the Giant Indio.

Good luck and have fun with the adventure.

 

[kovalines]

You may be right... But I'll try by the egg shapes, if it doesn't work, no problem.

About the giant indio, search '' índio gigante '', you'll find informations in portuguese, so just translate it in Google.
Here some websites(in portuguese):
http://www.indiogigante.com.br/ < These one have only one photo, but it is a good picture of them.
http://www.google.com.br/search?q=i...0&biw=1440&bih=809&sei=3mY-T7-XCInZ0QH0nJXMBw < Images at google.
http://www.galoindiogigante.com.br/site/ < click at ''galeria de imagens'' to see tho photos, there are a lot of them there!

< This video is in portuguese, but you can see how big they are!
http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/...gante-ovos-galadosferteis-de-grande-padro-_JM < more photos in a seelling website, they are selling eggs. A dozen is about R$35,00 or R$40, about U$25.00.

A 4 months cockerels are sold by U$85-120 and the pullet is sold by R$45-60, they are really expensive! They are used more for meat production.

The Giant Indio, or Indio Gigante, as it's called in Brazil, doesn't have many feathers, they have yellow feet and are really big.Until now, there isn't stardarts for colour or feathering, just the size.