Old farmers leg test for sexing

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Just wondering if anyone has done this, or if someone with vent sexed chicks can try the test and let us know it’s accuracy. My results were not very clear on days 1-10. Skipped checking a couple of days, and got what seems like clear and obvious results on day 13. This worked for me and a friend with 100% accuracy on 14 chicks, but timing seems to matter. These chicks are just backyard mixes…

GIRL:

BOY:

 

[azygous]

Could you elaborate on what it is about the legs that's supposed to indicate sex? I've never heard of any other reliable sexing methods other than vent and wing sexing.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Could you elaborate on what it is about the legs that's supposed to indicate sex? I've never heard of any other reliable sexing methods other than vent and wing sexing.

Auto sexing and sex linking plumage or skin color also work well.

Just wondering if anyone has done this, or if someone with vent sexed chicks can try the test and let us know it’s accuracy.

From you pics.. looks like your talking about what these folks are calling chick flipping..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-determine-the-sex-of-chicks-try-this.122546/

I'll go out on a limb and call it hogwash with regard to accuracy (not calling you a liar on your personal experience though).. and note that flipping chicks on their back is ONE way to determine/measure vigor after hatching.

It *may* be more accurate with a line of long term breeding towards uniformity.. but NO way can you expect any uniformity in short term cross breeding.. JMO.

Still your babies are cute!

And despite my trepidation, remain open minded.. watch me TRY this with my auto sexing chicks next time I hatch some (next season).. out of sheer curiosity (coupled with the ease and instant gratification of doing so)!

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Auto sexing and sex linking plumage or skin color also work well.


From you pics.. looks like your talking about what these folks are calling chick flipping..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-determine-the-sex-of-chicks-try-this.122546/

I'll go out on a limb and call it hogwash with regard to accuracy (not calling you a liar on your personal experience though).. and note that flipping chicks on their back is ONE way to determine/measure vigor after hatching.

It *may* be more accurate with a line of long term breeding towards uniformity.. but NO way can you expect any uniformity in short term cross breeding.. JMO.

Still your babies are cute!

And despite my trepidation, remain open minded.. watch me TRY this with my auto sexing chicks next time I hatch some (next season).. out of sheer curiosity (coupled with the ease and instant gratification of doing so)!

Thank you for the info and the link. It looks like no one has ever actually tested this properly by writing down dates and taking pictures and things of that nature. It would be especially helpful to do this with already sexed chicks.

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Could you elaborate on what it is about the legs that's supposed to indicate sex? I've never heard of any other reliable sexing methods other than vent and wing sexing.

When their legs stick out like the yellow chick, that indicates boy. If they pull their legs up, that is supposed to be a girl. The thing about this that makes people say it is not accurate is that it is very age dependent. No one wants to state the age of their chicks when they do this and that is the most important part. When I checked these chicks at three days old, they were the opposite and it wasn’t very clear either. My last chicks I checked at 9 days and it was very clear results. These ones the results were very clear at 12 days. When I say clear results, I mean that they very quickly go into an obvious position, like the pics. If the results are not clear and obvious, they are not the right age. This is all hypothesis!!

 

[Tstraub]

Hello, I do like the idea of having another reliable sexing technique. However I do see two faults in this theory. The first fault I see is that this looks to me like confirmation bias. You stated with an answer and are looking for the evidence to support it. I’m not trying to bash you I support your studies and hope you do find an answer. I’m just giving my opinion as someone on the outside looking in

The second fault is I don’t see many people wanting to use this technique. If it works at all it takes a minimum of 14 days to get reliable results. The biggest reason to sex a chicken early is too avoid the cost of feeding the males. I’m not trying to debate the value of a life just stating the facts. The most males aren’t worth the cost it takes to feed and house them. Also you can’t ship a 2 week old chick as easily as a day old. This method simply takes too much profit out of the business

It do hope you found your answer and wish you good luck in your search

 

[The cheek coop]

We done this on ALL of our chickens and it worked on them. If they lay still on their back it’s a pullet if it fights to get up it a roo

 

[azygous]

I'm skeptical. This "method" reminds me of another "old farmer's trick" of holding a new chick by the neck and shoulders so the legs dangle. If the chick struggles, it means it's a cockerel, and if the chick doesn't struggle, it's a pullet. No, this one is purely bogus. Don't even try it. But it has always been an old favorite.

We humans have brains wired to search out patterns to explain what we don't understand. Our culture is rampant with erroneous explanations for things simply because we crave easy reasons for things that puzzle us.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I don't vent sex my chicks, but have performed the leg stretch test on a total of 87 chicks of various breeds over the course of several years as part of my chick sexing experiment. Chicks were generally between 7 and 21 days of age when tested, max 28 days as part of the experiment. All chicks tested are now grown so I do know conclusively what sex they are. The results were... no, it does not work. Excluding that a surprisingly large number of chicks like to stretch one leg out and keep one tucked, it only accurately predicted the sex of about 47% of the chicks tested. If we assume that those that keep at least one leg tucked are female, then it accurately predicted 43.7% of the chicks' sexes, whereas if we assume that any that stretched any legs out were male, then it accurately predicted 51.7% of the chicks. So in other words, in all cases, it was only about as accurate as a coin flip.

That said, I did not keep track of the exact age at which I tested all of them. I do have around 15 chicks left due to hatch this year, so I can try it out with them at closer to 2 weeks of age and see what happens! Maybe I'll grab a few of my month-olds that I know the sex of already and give it a shot with them as well today. Bear in mind this is not the kind of sample size that I would find conclusive and I would want to add more data before I would say there was any truth to it.

I also tested the version where you lay them on their back to see which struggle to get up and which relax, within the same age range as above. Out of 92 chicks of various breeds tested, that one accurately predicted the sex of 59.8%, so also very close to a coin flip 50-50 on it.

There are several other tests I did as well, from wing sexing to pulling their tails to seeing which would or wouldn't drink vinegar water. There are a lot of crazy tests out there meant to predict the sex of chicks! But what I found was that pretty much none of those work accurately except for things like looking at how fast the comb grows in, and even that is not 100%. Waiting until they're 6-8 weeks old is your best bet. If you'd like to read more about them, here is the article I wrote with the results: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/an-experiment-in-chick-sexing-methods.72520/ Note that this year I have been way too busy and hatched way too many chicks to keep track of so it hasn't been updated since last year, but should be up to date up until then at least.

 

[azygous]