Cream Legbar Hybrid Thread

[dretd]

@flyingmonkeypoop have you ever tried vent sexing chicks? If yes is it fairly easy? I saw a video on youtube and although a little gross but they make it look very easy. Does it work for all breeds as opposed to feather sexing?

Hi Junibutt

I thought about teaching myself to vent sex several years ago when I was hatching a lot of roosters from my mixed flock. I even bought a 1935 publications by Gibbs that has been reprinted: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Sexing-...7993&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Guide+to+Sexing+Chicks

Here is a link to a article that has some of the illustrations from that booklet: http://home.comcast.net/~terrychinn/poultry_sorters/WattsPub_article.html and a brief history of vent sexing, which is very interesting.

And if you still crave more information, here is an article that talks about how vent sexers have developed a 'jizz' or ability to intuitively know and identify what it is by a glance--he references birders and plane identifiers that can glance at a bird/plane and just know what it is without being able to describe the tells to someone else..... 'I dont' know, it just is"! Jizz synonyms are intuition and gut feel.
http://cogprints.org/3255/1/chicken.pdf

I thought with some patience I could figure it out, but I never got the knack. Those little bitty baby parts are so very tiny. You can only do it at a day old. After that, the parts fall back a bit further into the cloaca and are not easily seen. You also have to be super fast. You have to clear any fecal material out if the cloaca first, then look fast before any more material oozes up and obscures those baby bits. I soon realized that I would need hundreds of chicks to get good and that it would be better to have a mentor that has pre-sexed the chicks and then pass the babies on to me so that I can see what is boy, girl or unknown---in order to develop 'the jizz'. Its a definite skill with a learning curve. Ducks are a bit more straight forward and I had better luck with them.

Best Plan: Autosexing birds it is!

 

[Junibutt]

Hi Junibutt

I thought about teaching myself to vent sex several years ago when I was hatching a lot of roosters from my mixed flock. I even bought a 1935 publications by Gibbs that has been reprinted: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Sexing-...7993&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Guide+to+Sexing+Chicks

Here is a link to a article that has some of the illustrations from that booklet: http://home.comcast.net/~terrychinn/poultry_sorters/WattsPub_article.html and a brief history of vent sexing, which is very interesting.

And if you still crave more information, here is an article that talks about how vent sexers have developed a 'jizz' or ability to intuitively know and identify what it is by a glance--he references birders and plane identifiers that can glance at a bird/plane and just know what it is without being able to describe the tells to someone else..... 'I dont' know, it just is"! Jizz synonyms are intuition and gut feel.
http://cogprints.org/3255/1/chicken.pdf

I thought with some patience I could figure it out, but I never got the knack. Those little bitty baby parts are so very tiny. You can only do it at a day old. After that, the parts fall back a bit further into the cloaca and are not easily seen. You also have to be super fast. You have to clear any fecal material out if the cloaca first, then look fast before any more material oozes up and obscures those baby bits. I soon realized that I would need hundreds of chicks to get good and that it would be better to have a mentor that has pre-sexed the chicks and then pass the babies on to me so that I can see what is boy, girl or unknown---in order to develop 'the jizz'. Its a definite skill with a learning curve. Ducks are a bit more straight forward and I had better luck with them.

Best Plan: Autosexing birds it is!

Thanks for all your input. I really appreciate it. The video on youtube made it look so easy, but I should have known better.

 

[texasmomma]

My mostly CL X bielefelder crosses were driving me nuts in the house. They are huge and working on getting feathered out, so I put them outside for the day. I may bring them inside at night. They haven't really been using the heat plate in the house, though it's a nice place for them to go to sleep.

They are still eating and drinking a ton and loving it. They have food ALL OVER. If they clean up a bit, now that they are outside, I'll get some pics. Right now, they look more like rats than chicks. They are 2 weeks old.

 

[dretd]

Thanks for all your input. I really appreciate it. The video on youtube made it look so easy, but I should have known better.

You may find you have a better time of it than I did. You could always study the pictures then give it a go on your next hatch and see how you do.

In fact, since they are already pre-sexed.....hmmmm...I haven't tried sexing the Legbars but maybe I should dig out the reference and try again since I know who the boys and girls are! Definitely will also get some sort of magnification.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

You may find you have a better time of it than I did. You could always study the pictures then give it a go on your next hatch and see how you do.

In fact, since they are already pre-sexed.....hmmmm...I haven't tried sexing the Legbars but maybe I should dig out the reference and try again since I know who the boys and girls are! Definitely will also get some sort of magnification.

Hi Junibutt

I thought about teaching myself to vent sex several years ago when I was hatching a lot of roosters from my mixed flock. I even bought a 1935 publications by Gibbs that has been reprinted: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Sexing-...7993&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Guide+to+Sexing+Chicks

Here is a link to a article that has some of the illustrations from that booklet: http://home.comcast.net/~terrychinn/poultry_sorters/WattsPub_article.html and a brief history of vent sexing, which is very interesting.

And if you still crave more information, here is an article that talks about how vent sexers have developed a 'jizz' or ability to intuitively know and identify what it is by a glance--he references birders and plane identifiers that can glance at a bird/plane and just know what it is without being able to describe the tells to someone else..... 'I dont' know, it just is"! Jizz synonyms are intuition and gut feel.
http://cogprints.org/3255/1/chicken.pdf

I thought with some patience I could figure it out, but I never got the knack. Those little bitty baby parts are so very tiny. You can only do it at a day old. After that, the parts fall back a bit further into the cloaca and are not easily seen. You also have to be super fast. You have to clear any fecal material out if the cloaca first, then look fast before any more material oozes up and obscures those baby bits. I soon realized that I would need hundreds of chicks to get good and that it would be better to have a mentor that has pre-sexed the chicks and then pass the babies on to me so that I can see what is boy, girl or unknown---in order to develop 'the jizz'. Its a definite skill with a learning curve. Ducks are a bit more straight forward and I had better luck with them.

Best Plan: Autosexing birds it is!

I just saw an article on the chicken whisperer FB page. A scientist in Germany has figured out a way to sex embryos. So hatcheries can discard males before hatch, instead of culling after hatch. I am sure that will be an expensive machine that will be out of our reach, but just wanted to pass along.
Here is the link http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Ch...ugh-earns-award-for-German-scientist-20150324

 

[Finnie]

The way they do it must be a secret, because they are not mentioning it in the article.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

The way they do it must be a secret, because they are not mentioning it in the article.

Ok, did some searching. Found this article, but just copied the explanation of the test.

But now a motley crew of animal-rights groups and academic researchers at institutions such as the University of Leipzig in Germany are working on innovative alternatives. Their most practical solution, which may come to a factory farm near you in just a couple of years’ time, is essentially the chicken version of gender-selective abortion. The technology, which has been successfully tested in labs, allows hatcheries to determine with extreme accuracy a chick’s gender even before it hatches. This is how it works: Nine days into an egg’s 21-day incubation period, the farmer — or more likely, a machine — makes a tiny hole in the egg and extracts a small amount of fluid. A quick genetic analysis resembling the amniocentesis performed on human embryos to discover infections and genetic abnormalities determines whether the egg will become a female chick, in which case it will be allowed to incubate until it hatches. If it would become a male, the egg is discarded and can be used as animal feed. Because 9-day-old eggs don’t experience pain, the practice causes fewer ethical dilemmas than the killing of chicks.

At Catholic University in the Belgian city of Leuven, a team of researchers added an additional twist with an egg-gender test that doesn’t involve extracting fluid. “Male and female chickens’ feathers have different colors, so we’ve developed a technology using special light rays that illuminate the eggs and shows which ones are male and female,” reports team leader Dr. Bart De Ketelaere. “After nine days incubation, we can determine the gender of the egg with 95 percent accuracy. After 11 days, the accuracy is 99 percent.” The catch? “It only works for brown eggs. Our technology is ready to go on the market if we find hatcheries that are fine with just gender-testing brown eggs."

 

[ronott1]

Ok, did some searching. Found this article, but just copied the explanation of the test.

But now a motley crew of animal-rights groups and academic researchers at institutions such as the University of Leipzig in Germany are working on innovative alternatives. Their most practical solution, which may come to a factory farm near you in just a couple of years’ time, is essentially the chicken version of gender-selective abortion. The technology, which has been successfully tested in labs, allows hatcheries to determine with extreme accuracy a chick’s gender even before it hatches. This is how it works: Nine days into an egg’s 21-day incubation period, the farmer — or more likely, a machine — makes a tiny hole in the egg and extracts a small amount of fluid. A quick genetic analysis resembling the amniocentesis performed on human embryos to discover infections and genetic abnormalities determines whether the egg will become a female chick, in which case it will be allowed to incubate until it hatches. If it would become a male, the egg is discarded and can be used as animal feed. Because 9-day-old eggs don’t experience pain, the practice causes fewer ethical dilemmas than the killing of chicks.

At Catholic University in the Belgian city of Leuven, a team of researchers added an additional twist with an egg-gender test that doesn’t involve extracting fluid. “Male and female chickens’ feathers have different colors, so we’ve developed a technology using special light rays that illuminate the eggs and shows which ones are male and female,” reports team leader Dr. Bart De Ketelaere. “After nine days incubation, we can determine the gender of the egg with 95 percent accuracy. After 11 days, the accuracy is 99 percent.” The catch? “It only works for brown eggs. Our technology is ready to go on the market if we find hatcheries that are fine with just gender-testing brown eggs."

The second test will work with certain sexlinks. I doubt legbar feathers would look different enough at 11 days to tell a color difference. Not many other breeds either.

 

[ChicagoClucker]

The second test will work with certain sexlinks. I doubt legbar feathers would look different enough at 11 days to tell a color difference. Not many other breeds either.

They say the second test only works on brown eggs. So it wouldn't work on any other colored eggs unfortunately.

 

[speedy2020]

My mostly CL X bielefelder crosses were driving me nuts in the house. They are huge and working on getting feathered out, so I put them outside for the day. I may bring them inside at night. They haven't really been using the heat plate in the house, though it's a nice place for them to go to sleep.

They are still eating and drinking a ton and loving it. They have food ALL OVER. If they clean up a bit, now that they are outside, I'll get some pics. Right now, they look more like rats than chicks. They are 2 weeks old.

I sure like to see some photos.