How to: Vent Sex/Feather Sex Day Old Chicks?

[CatchaTorriFarms]

So your hatching your own chicks. Question is how do you properly vent sex? Where do you learn it from? Does anyone know truly how its done and could demonstrate or teach it? I understand its an art, where would one go to learn such a skill that would be a viable asset to ones poultry farm?

Vent sexing should be done how many hours after the chicks have hatched and dried in the incubator? Any tips of opening the vent with the least amount of stress? 3 seconds is pretty speedy and requires an eye. So a nice lighted magnifying glass will that help?

Feather sexing is my understanding that its bread into them via a hybrid. Details?

There isnt much talk online that is resourceful, or educational (self taught) DIY. :/ Unfortunately cant travel the country and spend 3 years learning under a master chick sexier either.

Anyone that has their own chicks and can demonstrate it via video Facetime would be awesome!!

ps. willing to learn!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I cannot help you with vent sexing but the very first post in this thread tells you how feather sexing works. Just like red sex links and black sex links, the parents have to be set up properly or it does not work.

Tadkerson’s Sex Link Thread

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

I had to read that article a few times before it clicked but once it does the concept isn't that hard, at least in theory. Putting it into practice is often a lot harder as you cannot always tell just by looking what genetics the parents actually have. That's especially true with feather sexing.

The basic idea is that you have to have a sex linked gene that shows it's effects at hatch. The father has two copies of the recessive version and gives one copy to all his offspring, male and female. The hen has only one copy of the dominant version and gives that only to her sons, her daughters get nothing from her.

With feather sexing the gene used is the recessive fast feathering or the dominant slow feathering. The female chicks only get a recessive fast feathering gene from their father so their wing feathers are more developed at hatch. The boys get a recessive fast feathering gene from daddy but a dominant slow feathering gene from mommy. The dominant gene wins so the boys wing feathers are less developed at hatch.

That's the easy part. I leave it up to you to determine the genetic make-up of your parent birds.