Feather sexing young Chicks?

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Bleenie

Bleenie

Wyan-DO's
10 Years
Jul 14, 2009
5,014
104
268
The Beautiful Pacific NW ,WA
These are the few chicks I kept from a batch of EE's I hatched. It looks like 1 is lagging in feather growth, could it be a Rooster?

Everyone else has got nice tail feather(pin feathers) growth but the 1 white one has fuzz still. They are 1 week old.

Rooster?
20kvxp5.jpg


other chicks with more feather growth:
suze9t.jpg

142szfk.jpg

v7cwvr.jpg
 
I have never feather sexed a chick, but I just watched a show called "How it's Made" about hatching chicks and they showed how to feather sex. They spread the wing feathers out and if all of the feathers are the same length, then it's a rooster. If they are 2 different lengths (one row of feathers shorter than the other), then it's a pullet. Hope this helps.

If I'm wrong, someone else please tell me how it's done also. I just thought I'd share because I had just seen it on TV.
 
I think that feather sexing only works on certain breeds. There are some that the only way to tell is vent hole sexing, but that's not so safe from what I've heard.
 
Feather sexing as day olds only works on breeds bred to be feather sexed. Vent sexing is done by professionals who spend many years learning their trade.
I'm thinking the first one is a cockerel based solely on the fact that the wing bows (shoulders) are still bare, whereas the others have pretty nicely covered wing bows.
 
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I saw a show years ago where they were feather sexing chicks as they came down a conveyor belt. It was crazy how fast they picked them up and then slid them down the male or female chute after looking at them! I cant remember how many they did in a minute...I would like to see that show again just to hear the number. The chicks looked funny tumbling down to the bottom and the announcer said that they were very pliable at that age so they didnt get hurt. The sexers had about 98% accuracy too. WOW! I just wait until mine are bigger! LOL TErri O
 
My first chickens I got were from a local lady adn she said she could sex them by the wings. Out of 11, 6 were roosters.
 

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