Has wing sexing chicks ever been successful for you?

[australorp_breeder]

I just learned how to feather sex chicks by looking at their wings and I was wondering if anyone here can tell me if they've tried it and it's worked? Normally I wait until they're older and compare combs, but I would like to sex them while they're chicks without vent sexing them.

 

[pdsavage]

Feather sexing is easy, but it requires that the chickens be specially bred to manifest their sex in differences in the feathers as hatchlings. These are usually hybrids rather than true breeds, and are called sex linked chickens. Female chickens in these breeds have longer wing pinfeathers than the males do, which makes them relatively easy to tell apart. Most chickens do not have these traits bred into them, and the hatchlings are identical to all but the skilled eye of the professional chicken sexer.

 

[Chicksdigit]

Quote:
Hmm I thought there were some hatcheries that used this method to sex chicks, I know this isn't the prevalent method usually they will vent sex but I have seen a video on Youtube that shows a hatchery sexing chicks by the feather method.
from what I understand the female has a longer Primary and a shorter secondary feather and the males will have even feathers (same length)
I will be recieving 10 Ameraucanas on the 26th and I will see if this works.

Pdsavage you sound very knowledgeable, and I am fairly certain you are correct ...... but I hope that you are incorrect about this. Feather sexing looks so much easier than squeezing the poop out of a baby chick, so that you can vent sex it.

 

[Why and Dotte]

I had never heard of feather sexing until now, but I had been wondering why my 2 week old cockerel had shorter straight cut feathers and my pullets all had long wing feathers, the cockerel looked like someone had cut the ends off. He's the only one out of 15 pullets that I ordered that is like that.
Much better than squeezing the poop out of them!

Mine are brown leghorns, I'm going to check out my mixed breed chicks and see what the results are.

 

[dbcooper02]

Here are some great pictures of feather sexing, but remember these chicks are specifically cross bred to manifest this trait. I really don't think it will apply to most common chicks.
http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/reprod/ReproTech/Feathersex/index.htm

 

[australorp_breeder]

Thank you everyone. I know what to look for in feather sexing, although it's good information for those that cross this thread and didn't know how. I was just wondering if anyone has ever had any experience of their own trying it. All of my chicks except for two are crossbred. The other two are purebred. So far it looks like feather sexing is pretty easy, although I heard from one person that with Silkies and Cochins feather sexing didn't work for them and that it mostly works on harder-feathered birds.

 

[greathorse]

Lets try again. Feather sexing is only possible when the male and female line are bred for long or short feathers. I really cant remember which is which. So they will be feather sexable in the first generation just like any other sex link.

If you buy those birds that have been feather sexed from a hatchery and breed your own they will no longer in most cases be sexable by wing feathers.

In other words they will not breed true.

Hope this helps.

 

[PQ]

Had someone at swap pick up my young hens (not laying yet) and do this to them she swore they where all roo's so I kept them and low and behold they where all hens yes all hens... hummmm so not a success here. After some research found this is only successful in day old chicks. And chicks called sex-linked. Hope this helps, it is still fun for us though to guess by how quick a chick is and the movement, we found that some of the chicks(not all lol we have been fooled) that move quick are future roos and the slower more docile chicks are females. Anyway it is fun to try different things just because they are your chicks and you can