My thoughts are turning to sexing the recently hatched RIR chicks. We live 6 miles from downtown Indy, and unfortunately, roosters are not welcomed in our subdivision.
I've heard of vent sexing, but in researching how to vent sex, it seems I missed the chance to sex the chicks as day olds...after learning about vent sexing, I'm not sure I'd have been successful anyway. I also learned about feather sexing, but it seems I've missed the chance to feather sex as day olds, too.
I found some seemingly reliable info on sexing 4 week olds. They are 2 weeks old now, so I can try that out in a couple of weeks.
One BYC person posted that [COLOR=0000FF]RIR females will have a small black stripe going down their heads[/COLOR][COLOR=333333]. If that's reliable info, that would be useful.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=333333]I also found a BYC post that suggested this:[/COLOR] [COLOR=0000FF]Tie a ring on a string and hold it just above the chick, very close to it's body but not touching. The ring will swing in a straight line back and forth for males and in a circle for[/COLOR] [COLOR=333333]females. Really? This sounds like crazy talk. Does it have to be a full moon out, too?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=333333]Any reasonable tidbits on sexing suggestions for 2 week old RIR?[/COLOR]
One of the members on the Turkey 2013 thread has done some researching on sexing turkeys. She said that what she found works for chickens too. I did some searching, but couldn't find it, but here is what I can remember: Please take this as unproven, both in other people testing her hypothesis and my memory of exactly what she said......
Take the chick/poult and turn it on its back in your hand. If it hold both legs close to its body, its a girl. If it tends to stick one or both legs out, its a male. Something to do with how a female will assume a more defensive posture and a male will be more assertive. She said it has proved very accurate for her.
I did this with my two newest chicks, and they both showed female. It will be a while yet before I have confirmation one way or another, but I thought it was worth a try. I plan to try this on everything I hatch this spring and see how I end up. I haven't hatched any more autosexing CCLs since she posted this, but if anyone has any right now, it would be a quick way to see if it is reliable.
I can guarantee that both the string trick and holding the chicks on their backs will work about half the time.There are a million of them. Hold the chick up by its beak, hold the chick's beak closed, hold something in front of the chick, hang the chick by its feet... I have heard them all and I have seen many, many, many reports of each and every one of them failing to work accurately. They should not be taken as a reliable way of sexing chicks, no matter what an 'expert' at it might say.
Hatching autosexing or sexlinked birds is the only way to know absolutely the sex of the chicks at hatch--even vent sexing can't be guaranteed beyond 90% accuracy. Other than that, because the time for both vent sexing and feather sexing has passed, you'll just have to wait it out. The sex of a chick can be determined between 4 and 6 weeks of age in most birds, a little later than that in some because of their breed or how they develop. The males shouldn't start crowing until long after that, so you can always post their pictures in a couple weeks and see then what you have.
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