Old farmers leg test for sexing

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

That sounds adorable! Do you have any upright pics of them grown?

Oh, I most assuredly do! Always happy to share them, too! These are the actual parents of those chicks:

And the birds in the pen that the other chicks I'll be testing hatched out of this past weekend:

I tested mine again today, 24 days old, and they still go directly to the expected positions. It’s instant though. No need to wait even a few seconds.

I'm excited to see what happens on Saturday with mine! The ones I posted pictures of will be about 13 days old then, like the original post said.

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

They are absolutely gorgeou! It looks like you can, and did, brush their hair! The are perfect. You have done an amazing job with them.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Aww, thank you! That means a lot to me as someone fairly new to actually selecting and breeding chickens!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Day 13 check in. Suspected cockerels right now are the green leg band, orange leg band, and no extra leg band chicks (the first three pictures) based on early comb growth, but I won't be confident in which are male or female for another week or two. Of note, the chick with no extra leg band (second picture) had one leg stretched and one tucked in until right as I got my phone out to snap the picture, and then he pulled his leg back in and relaxed like shown in the picture. Yellow and purple (last two pictures) both definitely tucked their feet in this time, while the rest sort of had their feet raised above their bellies.

I think I will keep testing them daily now as time permits and report back if anything changes.

Editing, I also forgot, the next group of chicks will be 13 days old next Friday to Saturday. I didn't keep track of who hatched when to know which specific ones will be 13 days old when, so I will start checking them on Friday if I have the time.

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Very interesting! Now we just have to wait until they crow. I have one that pulled her legs in tight all along, and has shown zero rooster qualities, but now at 4 weeks, her comb is darker than I would expect a hens to be. Hopefully she hasn’t turned into a roo. I will have to part with one or two Roos if that’s the case since I already have 2 and only 25 hens. Going to post pics of “her” in another thread and see if I can get some input.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Day 12-13 for the younger group and they all also either held their feet in or slightly above their stomachs. No pictures this time because my phone is dead, but I'll get shots of them tomorrow when I repeat just in case of day 13 being the threshold, since I don't know which chicks are 12 days old and which are 13 days old today.

The older set continues to react as shown in their last set of pictures. They are about 19 days old today.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Day 13-14--a slight development! We have three babies this time around that kept one foot tucked in and held one foot out! Oddly enough, it was the left foot each time.

The rest still pull their feet in or hold them above their stomachs, however.

I will be busy tomorrow so probably won't be able to check them again then, but will continue to check them as often as I can over the next week!

 

[Tstraub]

Any updates? I would think these chicks would be getting to the age where they could be sexed by comb and wattles with decent accuracy. I’m curious how closely the predictions are matching the chick’s development.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yeah, I'd been thinking for a few days now I ought to update on them, whoops! I do have just one chick in that younger set that I'm still not 100% sure on; I haven't decided if she's a pullet with a bit more comb than I would expect or a cockerel that's behind the others in development. I feel like she's most likely a pullet, but I just am not positive.

But out of the other 8 in that group, there are 4 cockerels and 4 pullets.

The three that had one leg out and one in, they did this inconsistently for the days following that I kept testing, and then I got busy and unfortunately stopped testing at around 3 weeks of age. Everyone else consistently held their feet in.

The first two chicks pictured with one leg out are cockerels, and the third, the Splash, is a pullet. Of the chicks in the same post with legs held in at their stomachs consistently, the chick whose sex I'm not 100% sure of is one of the first two with yellow leg bands. I unfortunately didn't keep track of which is which, but I do know she's one of those two. Of the remaining five with legs held in, we have 2 for sure cockerels and 3 pullets.

So, of the total of three chicks that sometimes held a leg out, two were correctly predicted as cockerels and one incorrectly predicted. And of the total of 11 chicks across both batches who held their legs in at their stomachs and whose sex I am confident of, 6 were correctly predicted as pullets and 5 incorrectly predicted. That means so far I have a total of 8 correct predictions and 6 incorrect predictions. A success rate of about 57%. If we assume the chick I am not confident about is a pullet after all, then we have a success rate of 60%. If we assume that chick is a cockerel, the success rate drops to about 53%.

In any case, this is not a great success rate, not much better than flipping a coin.

But, because of the conditions of my testing, we can't really say for certain that it doesn't work under any circumstances. All that we can be certain of now is that it does not seem to work in Cochin bantams. I very likely will not have anything but Cochin bantams in my brooder for a long time, so that's about the extent of my ability to test this beyond just continuing to add more data points for Cochin bantams.

Slight edits for clarity​

 

[Tstraub]

Yeah, I'd been thinking for a few days now I ought to update on them, whoops! I do have just one chick in that younger set that I'm still not 100% sure on; I haven't decided if she's a pullet with a bit more comb than I would expect or a cockerel that's behind the others in development. I feel like she's most likely a pullet, but I just am not positive.

But out of the other 8 in that group, there are 4 cockerels and 4 pullets.

The three that had one leg out and one in, they did this inconsistently for the days following that I kept testing, and then I got busy and unfortunately stopped testing at around 3 weeks of age. Everyone else consistently held their feet in.

The first two chicks pictured with one leg out are cockerels, and the third, the Splash, is a pullet. Of the chicks with legs held in at their stomachs consistently, the chick whose sex I'm not 100% sure of is one of the first two with yellow leg bands. I unfortunately didn't keep track of which is which, but I do know she's one of those two. Of the remaining five with legs held in, we have 2 for sure cockerels and 3 pullets.

So, of the total of three chicks that sometimes held a leg out, two were correctly predicted as cockerels and one incorrectly predicted. And of the total of 11 chicks who held their legs in at their stomachs and whose sex I am confident of, 6 were correctly predicted as pullets and 5 incorrectly predicted. That means so far I have a total of 8 correct predictions and 6 incorrect predictions. A success rate of about 57%. If we assume the chick I am not confident about is a pullet after all, then we have a success rate of 60%. If we assume that chick is a cockerel, the success rate drops to about 53%.

In any case, this is not a great success rate, not much better than flipping a coin.

But, because of the conditions of my testing, we can't really say for certain that it doesn't work under any circumstances. All that we can be certain of now is that it does not seem to work in Cochin bantams. I very likely will not have anything but Cochin bantams in my brooder for a long time, so that's about the extent of my ability to test this beyond just continuing to add more data points for Cochin bantams.

Slight edit for clarity​

Thanks this thread has been a fun read.