How To Sex A Chicken - Wisdom From An Old Timer

[ChickMagnet64]

Best advice I can give on how to sex a chicken is to wait until about four weeks. Roosters definitely walk different. I had twelve hatch this year and tried every piece of advice I could find on this site but it's never consistent. Closest thing besides the walk I found from a piece of advice is to make a loud bang and hens will duck and roosters will lift their heads and look around. Not very scientific and when there's more than a few it's very hard to keep track.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I always look to feather development, especially the wing and tail feathers those first few days, hen develop them faster than roosters, roosters stay bald on the body longer, than the combs get pink than red, where hens always stay orange until sexual maturity.

 

[ChickMagnet64]

I tried this method on this years hatchlings but still seem to get inconsistent results. There's got to be some sure fire way. How do they do it at the hatchery's?

 

[ChickMagnet64]

And BTW, even the science at the hatchery is not perfect. I picked up 15 new pullets at Agway last spring and two of them are crowing;-)

 

[donrae]

And BTW, even the science at the hatchery is not perfect. I picked up 15 new pullets at Agway last spring and two of them are crowing;-)

Cause it's not science. It's a human being picking up a chick, squeezing it's belly a little to make it's genitals push out, and deciding if it's male or female. Unfortunately, birds' anatomy isn't as cut and dried as mammals. Many are kind of ambiguous, and when you think of how many little chicken butts those folks look at each day.....I think a 10% margin of error is fantastic.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

And BTW, even the science at the hatchery is not perfect. I picked up 15 new pullets at Agway last spring and two of them are crowing;-)

It might help if you familiarize yourself with vent sexing. The genital structure of chickens is internal *and* is not as easily differentiated as external genitalia such as that seen on humans, etc . Sexers at the hatchery are exposing the genitalia and then "reading" it to make their best guess as to whether the chick is male or female. There are several variations in the appearance of the genitals once they are exposed - see below and perhaps you will have a better understanding of why there is a 5-15% "oops" rate in factory sexed chicks (all on the left are male, all on the right are female) keep in mind these are close up photos that are quite enlarged - the actual reading is done on the tiny little vents of newly hatched chicks:

 

[Cluckywucky]

I have two cross breeds, silkie/sebrights, beautiful little birds but with them having the characteristics of both it is difficult to tell. They grew up with a sebright chick who grew into a very obvious comb and he even started to crow, now has a new home with ladies of his own. But the two crosses have not started crowing yet, no comb to tell and don't think they have produced an egg as all the hens have gone off because all 3 of our silkie bantams started being broody at the same time and seem to have put off the other hens. So two things, advise on how to sex these birds, when do silkie bantam cockerals start to crow and how do I stop these other three from getting broody when we don't want them to be. (ps they are not even sitting on eggs most of them time!!)

 

[sgps]

Um if you hold a chick up side down by its legs they are likely to pop out of the socket but not to grown hens.

 

[rIrs roost]

I always just bend down and put my mouth close to their ear and ask em if they are hens or roos. Believe it or not, it works about 50 percent of the time

 

[rIrs roost]

It might help if you familiarize yourself with vent sexing. The genital structure of chickens is internal *and* is not as easily differentiated as external genitalia such as that seen on humans, etc . Sexers at the hatchery are exposing the genitalia and then "reading" it to make their best guess as to whether the chick is male or female. There are several variations in the appearance of the genitals once they are exposed - see below and perhaps you will have a better understanding of why there is a 5-15% "oops" rate in factory sexed chicks (all on the left are male, all on the right are female) keep in mind these are close up photos that are quite enlarged - the actual reading is done on the tiny little vents of newly hatched chicks:

Some of these are very confusing. Thanks @Ol Grey Mare. I now know that I'll never try this. Ill just wait it out.