Choosing chicks

[Irishmom80]

I saw on Facebook about how a baby chicks wing can show what sex. Is this true?

 

[FernwoodHollow]

I saw on Facebook about how a baby chicks wing can show what sex. Is this true?

Wing sexing or feather sexing when chicks are really young is really only doable for very specific breeds. Generally you're looking at when the wing is spread out the roundness of the feathers and if it looks more like a butterfly wing where the top part is longer than the bottom. But generally speaking most breeds can't be sexed based on Wing or feather shape. At least until they get older and they already have other identifying characteristics

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

True Wing Feather Sexing is a trait that must be bred specifically four by crossing the fast and slow feathering parent stock, and it must be done within the first three days of hatch. All other applications of this technique are nothing more than a matter of luck as to whether or not your prediction based on looking at the wing feathers turns out to be true
Outside of auto sexing breeds or sex-linked (chicks bred for the wing feather sexing trait would fall under this category) the only true method of chick sexing is vent sexing and that has about an 85 to 90% accuracy rate when done by the most experienced professional.... this is the method that is used by hatcheries when they send their chicks out whether it be to a private buyer or retailers such as your local Farm Store who are selling sex pullets

 

[Tahai]

Some heritage and hybrid breeds of chickens have feather development speeds that are sex specific. For example, in my brahma chicks and buckeye chicks - the pullets get wing and tail feathers faster than the cockerals. You can tell by week 1 who's who for those specific breeds. This doesn't work right at hatching, because everybody is the same feather length then. (Reminder, this is breed specific. Rhode Island Reds are another breed this works for.) (side note, Buckeyes can also be sexed by coloration at hatching.)

What breeds are the chicks you are trying to sex?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I saw on Facebook about how a baby chicks wing can show what sex. Is this true?

I'll copy a link to a thread discussing sex links. The first post is a description on how it works and how the parents have to be set up genetically for it to work. The post discussed Red Sex Links, Black Sex Links, and sex-linked feather sexing. It was written by a professional that worked with the hatcheries so I trust him.

Sex- linked Information | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chickens

Some breeds are autosexing. This usually involves the barring gene, it is not feather sexing. There are other sex linked genes that can be used to sex chicks at hatch,, such as leg color, but red sex link, black sex link, and feather-sexing are the three most often used.

For sex-linked feather sexing, the female has to be pure for slow-feathering and the male has to be pure for fast-feathering. That generally means crossing two specific breeds with each other or keeping two separate lines of the parent flocks with knowledge of how these gens are set up. This is often how Cornish X are bred, using feather sexing since all parent flocks are usually white and cannot be red or black sex links.

All of this to say that yes, it is possible to sex some chicks by looking at the wing feathers at hatch, but only if the parents are set up correctly genetically. It does not work if both parents are the same breed, like the hatchery chicks we get. Other than some Cornish X I'm not aware of any cross-breed chicks we typically get from the hatcheries we use that are set up properly. So, no, the hatchery chicks we get cannot be feather sexed. Besides, this only works for a day two after hatch, after that it is unreliable. We generally do not get the chicks that fast.