Just a thought about hatcheries and male/female ratio

[duck&chickencrazy]

How do we know if hatcheries actually do sex the chicks they send us (even tho they are sold as straight run) and give us more males than females on purpose? Has anyone ever gotten a 50/50 of straight run chicks? I know I have not...always seems to be twice as many males as females...I would understand if they had to take some females so that they would have breeding stock but if they do that we shouldn't have to pay as much since they KNOW they are sending more males than females...

 

[conny63malies]

i think they grab some females out and sell them and then offer the rest as straight run. thats why its better to pay for sexing the chicks.

 

[conny63malies]

oh i forgot. i bought three ducks before , unsexed, managed to get ALL males, not even a reversed trio.

 

[PotterWatch]

I've gotten straight runs that were exactly 50/50 and one that was heavy on the pullet side. Only once have I gotten a straight run order that was really heavy on the cockerel side.

 

[WIChookchick]

When I lived in CA, and was unemployed I could create a resume that in the creation process had pull down menu's, and one of them was a chick sexer...
SO yes they should know how to sex, and yes they do....
Inevitably there are more cockerals than pullets, as they would keep some for breeding...


So I saw a thing on how hatcheries do artificial insemination of turkeys. .. So... if they are of the HUGE type that can't live very long due to their legs not holding up their weight, do they do a diet restriction?

 

[cassie]

Straight run is just that. You should get 50% males and 50% females, but anything can happen. I once got a dozen fertile eggs from a neighbor. I put them under a broody and I had a 100% hatch. I also had 100% roosters.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Straight run means you get what they reach in and pull out of the bin. It does not mean you get 50/50.

Genetically, over an enormous number of chicks hatched, it should average out half males half females. You are not likely to be ordering an enormous number of chicks. So you get whatever is pulled out of the bin.

If pullets are important to you, pay the small fee for sexing and order pullets. You are going to put a lot of money into those chickens. Paying an extra dollar for each one is peanuts compared to what you will spend on them while you have them.

I got 10 straight run from Holderread this spring and it turned out to be 6 ducks and 4 drakes. Good luck for me, but it means that someone else got those extra drakes that I didn't get.

I also got 25 males once in an order of 25 straight run. That was probably more than bad luck and I won't do business with that hatchery again.

I bought 20 leftover ducklings from Ideal on their weekly special. It was certainly a mix of male and female. I have no reason to think that they fished out any of the females before they sold the ducklings. Not that I would have cared, because I ate them. But I did get enough females that it was clearly a straight run that hadn't been tampered with.

 

[9Catsz]

I ordered 15 assorted color silkies, Cackle doesn't sex their bantams, so they're straight run. Ended up getting 10 roosters and 5 hens, 12 black, 1 splash, 1 white, 1 buff....so much for assorted colors.......

 

[bunnibird55]

Straight run is a crap shoot. My first bunch of eggs I hatched this last year had 15 cockerels and only 4 pullets.....and it was from my own chickens. I tried to figure out who laid which eggs for the succeeding hatches to see if some hens were more prone to laying boy eggs but I got all messed up and never figured it out.......

 

[thekid]

Quote:
Yup meat turkeys, just like meat chickens don't like that long