First hatch due in a week.......How and when can you tell the sex??

[motor97405]

This is our first so far sucessful attempt at this and things are going great!! But we are curious how to tell what sex and how early can you tell??? Any help is wonderful!! Thank you!!

 

[Tiramisu]

I know their is wing sexing, but I dont know how to do it and I think it only works with some breeds (not sure) and it needs to be done within the first few days. Otherwise you just have to wait a while and watch their combs/wattles.

 

[Firearia]

Yup wing sexing only works with a fast feathering bird and a slow feathering bird. Therefore I doubt you can use it, but you never know.

I heard, but I'm not sure, that you can vent sex by looking at the chick's vent when you open it/it opens and for roos you see a pimple like thing. But it doesn't always work considering roos can have tiny... Tools... While females can be a bit more masculine.

 

[ravenseye57]

I'd also like to know the answer to this Q. What about their combs and wattles? My chicks are almost 4 wks old and I'd like to be able to separate the pullets from the roos (mostly destined for meat) before I put them out in the tractors. We only had $$ for hardware cloth for the hens, so I had to use chicken wire for the roos. The hens were significantly more expensive, so I don't want any mixups since the rooster run is less secure. I can keep them all in the hen run/tractor for a while, but with 46 of them they'll need to be separated soon for space reasons. Any hints??

 

[briteday]

I've had pretty good success with sexing by looking at their legs/ankles (compare a couple of chicks from the same hatch date) and also feeling the "heftiness" of the bird in question as a roo, compared to his hatch mates. The roos, right from the start, seem to have larger diameter legs in the ankle area. And ironically, I picked up one that I thought was roo-ish from the legs and I could immediately tell that he was significantly heavier than his hatch mates. Sure enough, they're now 10 weeks old and he has a good red comb and wattles going on...definite roo.

 

[Treegod]

My last batched confirmed to me that females' feathers grow faster. At one week old I was able to tell which would probably* be female and which one male. The female had her flight feathers extending to the end of her body and the male didn't have as much growing.

*I say probably because it might be different for different breeds and it's more of a rule of thumb I think.

Got another batch hatching about now so in about a week I'll be able to see again. I have a mixed breed flock so it'll be interesting to see just how much this'll happen.