Excellent Article on Sexing Day Old Chicks...inc Vent Sexing

[speckledhen]

This is a several-page Mother Earth News article you may find very useful, especially with chick season upon us.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/1974-05-01/How-to-Sex-Day-Old-Chicks.aspx

 

[katrinag]

Good read. Thanks.

 

[1mommahen]

Very interesting, Thanks Speckledhen!

 

[katrinag]

Do you know of any places that show better vent pictures?

 

[speckledhen]

I had a link to some other sexing documents, but it's probably very hard to get good pics of a tiny chick's vent. I dont think I have it on this laptop computer, but I'll look. I've seen pics in other places, but they still are hard to see. It's probably one of those things that's better shown in real life.

 

[Fay at Frizzled Feathers]

Thanks for the great read Speckledhen , very interesting article !

 

[speckledhen]

I had a link to some other sexing documents, but it's probably very hard to get good pics of a tiny chick's vent. I dont think I have it on this laptop computer, but I'll look. I've seen pics in other places, but they still are hard to see. It's probably one of those things that's better shown in real life. This is one reason I love having Barred Rocks, which are much more easily sexed without going to a special school like vent sexers do.

Here are some other sexing articles:

http://www.dominiquechicken.com/Sexing_Dominique_chicks.html
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/pr_histpubs/Pubs/SB307.PDF

Here's an excerpt from the last one:

Quinn and Knox (1939) attempted to separate the sexes of
Barred Plymouth Rocks by means of the intensity of the black
pigment in the down and legs. In different lots of chicks they
report 83.5, 86.1 and 91.8 percent accuracy.
Jerome (1939) describes a method of sex identification in
Barred Plymouth Rocks based upon the regularity of the outline
of the head spot rather than the size of the spot. Those chicks
having headspots irregular in outline and scattered in appearance
are males while the females tend to have headspots withmore regular outlines. The author claimed an accuracy of 90
percent or better when considering only the headspot and 95
percent if the color of the legs was included in the consideration.
The Canadian Department of Agriculture (Anonymous 1941)
issues an excellently illustrated bulletin describing the method.
It is stated in the bulletin that the method “is widely practiced
in Barred Rock chicks by commercial chick sexers.” Sex identification
is based upon outline of head spot, color of legs and
shade of down color. There are several types of male and female
head spots some of which are shown in Figure 1.
RHODE ISLAND REDS
Byerly and Quinn (1936) report that there is some sex difference
in the down of Rhode Island Red chicks. The females
tend to show spots or stripes of darker color in the down on the
head and back. By separating the chicks into groups with and
without spots or stripes sex was identified with 82 percent
accuracy.​

 

[moonlyghtegirl]

Thank you!!!!

 

[Momma_Cluck]

Thak you SO much! We are desperately trying to sex our new chicks... great info, and links! Gotta Love Mother Earth News! Just started my subscription last month!!

 

[your_pal_skip]

Oh wow, I've been really baffled by how little information there is on the internet about vent sexing. I don't have the confidence to do it myself, but it did seem weird that there's just NOTHING online that tells you how to do it. This article is amazing!