At what age is it possible to determine Male from female ..

[fancybobo]

At what age is it possible to determine Male from female ....Ace Hardware is selling pullets as young as a few days old and says they are all female but others have told me NOT to ever believe it when someone tells you that you can determine the sex that early ....So what's the truth???

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

It depends on the breed, the color, and who's doing the sexing.

For example, sex links can be sexed by color at hatch. You can get a very good idea of the sex of Barred Rocks at hatch, but not other colors of Rocks. If the chick was specially bred with a fast-feathering mother and slow-feathering father, you can sex them at a day old by the length of their wing feathers--but this method won't work on chicks that weren't bred for it to be so.

If you've had lots of training and practice, you can look inside a chick's vent at a day old and get about a 90%+ success rate determining sex. Hatcheries hire specialists to vent-sex chicks the day of hatch. Most of us backyard folks aren't that good, however.

I would say that if the bin is labeled "pullets" you have a decent chance of them being pullets since they were sexed either by vent-sexing, color-sexing or feather-sexing at a hatchery. Remember though, no hatchery guarantees better than 90% sexing success so in any batch of 100 chicks there could be as many as 10 boys and the hatchery would still count that as "sexed pullets."

 

[Cr8zycknlady]

There are different ways, I know for sure that the sex-link breads are easy to recognize because the boys are one color and the girls are another. As far as any other way to identify the sex, I don't know. I always buy the chicks and have to wait unil the feathers start growing, the comb starts getting read and the legs are thicker. Also, another way to determine if your chicks are roos...wait until one morning, when you hear a weird sound... that somehow resembles the very beginings of a crow, that is a rooster.

Sorry, I am not much help, but I had to share the little that I know

 

[dusica731]

It depends on the breed, the color, and who's doing the sexing.

For example, sex links can be sexed by color at hatch. You can get a very good idea of the sex of Barred Rocks at hatch, but not other colors of Rocks. If the chick was specially bred with a fast-feathering mother and slow-feathering father, you can sex them at a day old by the length of their wing feathers--but this method won't work on chicks that weren't bred for it to be so.

If you've had lots of training and practice, you can look inside a chick's vent at a day old and get about a 90%+ success rate determining sex. Hatcheries hire specialists to vent-sex chicks the day of hatch. Most of us backyard folks aren't that good, however.

I would say that if the bin is labeled "pullets" you have a decent chance of them being pullets since they were sexed either by vent-sexing, color-sexing or feather-sexing at a hatchery. Remember though, no hatchery guarantees better than 90% sexing success so in any batch of 100 chicks there could be as many as 10 boys and the hatchery would still count that as "sexed pullets."

X2

 

[donrae]

It depends on the breed, the color, and who's doing the sexing.

For example, sex links can be sexed by color at hatch. You can get a very good idea of the sex of Barred Rocks at hatch, but not other colors of Rocks. If the chick was specially bred with a fast-feathering mother and slow-feathering father, you can sex them at a day old by the length of their wing feathers--but this method won't work on chicks that weren't bred for it to be so.

If you've had lots of training and practice, you can look inside a chick's vent at a day old and get about a 90%+ success rate determining sex. Hatcheries hire specialists to vent-sex chicks the day of hatch. Most of us backyard folks aren't that good, however.

I would say that if the bin is labeled "pullets" you have a decent chance of them being pullets since they were sexed either by vent-sexing, color-sexing or feather-sexing at a hatchery. Remember though, no hatchery guarantees better than 90% sexing success so in any batch of 100 chicks there could be as many as 10 boys and the hatchery would still count that as "sexed pullets."

x3---saved me all that typing lol.

 

[fancybobo]

Thanks everyone...Rhode Island Reds chicks are what we will be getting at ACE. Since I've read and been told that those are the hardiest and great layers-Besides great tasting eggs..We have the coop already but are having difficulty finding young laying hens. So may have to go the chick route....So it sounds like I'll have a 90 % chance that they are pullets (that's what they are advertised as)

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Thanks everyone...Rhode Island Reds chicks are what we will be getting at ACE. Since I've read and been told that those are the hardiest and great layers-Besides great tasting eggs..We have the coop already but are having difficulty finding young laying hens. So may have to go the chick route....So it sounds like I'll have a 90 % chance that they are pullets (that's what they are advertised as)

I'd say that's right, a 90% chance.

It is hard to find pullets at point of lay, and you'll pay a premium for them especially this time of year. They're easier to find in the fall when the spring hatch grows up.