Fertile eggs?

[Cool_Catrules456]

How many chicks do you have now?

9. One from a feed store and the ones I just listed.

 

[NatJ]

I’m trying to learn easy ways to sex easter eggers

You are talking as if Easter Eggers were a specific breed, with specific traits that are different than other breeds. They are not.

For color/sexing purposes, Easter Eggers are no different than any other mixed breeds.

So you would really just be learning about male-specific and female-specific traits that apply to chickens in general.

For example, black breast is a male-specific trait, and salmon breast is a female-specific trait, when they are found in chickens with certain other patterns. (Black breast on an all-black chicken doesn't mean anything. And males of hen-feathered breeds can show female color patterns. I don't expect either of those to apply to your Easter Eggers.) For examples of black breasted males, look at photos of any breed in Black Breasted Red, Silver Duckwing, Wheaten, or Birchen. The females of those varieties may look quite different from each other, but all the males have the black breast with a variety of colors on the rest of them.

the rust red is a some what reliable way, or so I’m told. Only if the bird is not allready brown though, then its not. So sexing the buff chick this way it out. If you look up easter egger roosters, (and they are not allready red/brown) you will probably find most of they have the red feathers on the shoulders/wings.

That goes for quite a lot of mixed-breed chickens. It tends to be very obvious in Red Sexlink males too. Yes, it's a very common male trait in any chickens that were not carefully selected otherwise. (People have put quite a bit of work into breeding it out of many pure breeds of chickens.)

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

The family member who assisted the hatch of the weaker chick, clearly was too rough with it, the chick is now slowing signs of trama. Any ideas on what to do? The chick has lost all balance, was gasping for air earlyer, not drinking, but eating. Ive tried scrambled eggs. Yogurt, water with a little bit of sugar. I want this chick to live, incase they are female…

If they do indeed pass, do you think I could try to vent sex it? I want to learn how to do it, but I dont want to hurt live chicks. Or would that be cruel?

 

[NatJ]

If they do indeed pass, do you think I could try to vent sex it? I want to learn how to do it, but I dont want to hurt live chicks. Or would that be cruel?

I don't know enough about vent sexing to give any advice on how to do it, or how hard it is to learn, or whether it would be cruel to do it on live chicks.

But if the chick dies, there's nothing wrong with using the dead body to try the technique.
It will probably be a bit different than on a live chick, especially if the body is stiff before you try, but you might learn enough to decide whether it's worth more practice in future.

For another check on what the gender really is, you can cut the body open and look for the reproductive organs, right up inside the back. You can probably tell tiny testicles (a pair of things like little grains of rice) from female organs (I don't have a good way to describe them, but they are not the tidy pair a male has.) Or of course you could take a blood sample and send off for DNA gender testing if you don't trust the results you get any other way, but that takes longer and costs more, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth it in this case.

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

I don't know enough about vent sexing to give any advice on how to do it, or how hard it is to learn, or whether it would be cruel to do it on live chicks.

But if the chick dies, there's nothing wrong with using the dead body to try the technique.
It will probably be a bit different than on a live chick, especially if the body is stiff before you try, but you might learn enough to decide whether it's worth more practice in future.

For another check on what the gender really is, you can cut the body open and look for the reproductive organs, right up inside the back. You can probably tell tiny testicles (a pair of things like little grains of rice) from female organs (I don't have a good way to describe them, but they are not the tidy pair a male has.) Or of course you could take a blood sample and send off for DNA gender testing if you don't trust the results you get any other way, but that takes longer and costs more, and I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth it in this case.

I never even thought about cutting them open. They are doing slightly better now! So I dont think I will need to, but I will keep it in mind when I do have a dead chick. And I ment if it would be cruel to do it on a dead one, but I dont think it will.? I mainly want to get good at vent sexing, to be able to do larger projects where you only want1-2 males. And it will save on feed, when you are able to get rid of the unwanted males earlyer. I’m going to do a little more research on it, I dont really want to try it on a alive chick, as I dont want to screw up, thats why I want to practice on a few dead chicks first, before a day old chick. And then I can cut them open to see if I am correct. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

I just found a really detailed video on vent sexing, im not going to sex the younger chicks, but I will try on the older chicks. (Of course I’ll be as gentle as I can be, so far I did two, I now know what I am looking for.
Silver orpington apears to be female!
GLW is male. I will be back with the brown orpington and white chick. I feel like I trust myself more with older chicks, as they are not as fragile. (I have been trying to learn vent sexing for nearly a year now, I knew how to do it, just never what I was looking for)

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

Brown orpington is a male, white chick apears to be female?

 

[NatJ]

I never even thought about cutting them open.

It's easy to check gender while butchering, so at some point I started checking on chicks that died or that were culled at a young age.

And I ment if it would be cruel to do it on a dead one, but I dont think it will.?

I consider something "cruel" to an animal if it causes suffering. Once the animal is dead, it cannot experience any suffering, so I would not consider anything cruel if you are doing it to the body of a dead animal. (Maybe gross or icky, depending on what you're doing, but not cruel.)

I mainly want to get good at vent sexing, to be able to do larger projects where you only want1-2 males. And it will save on feed, when you are able to get rid of the unwanted males earlyer.

I agree, those are very good reasons to want to sex them earlier!

There might be some times when you could set up sex-linked crosses, but there are many times in any project when no kind of sex-linkage would work. So I agree that being able to vent-sex your own chicks would be quite handy!

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

Little ones have so much energy, you cant even tell one of them was weaker. They are getting supervised outside time. (Only 15 minutes) they are really enjoying themselves!

They can’t stay still.

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

Whats the chance of beardless and muffless chicks from him? He seamed to have 2 of the gene, so im guessing really low, so how do you tell if the chicks are low bearded and muffed vs non.?