Question/Idea

[casportpony]

@red horse ranch noticed that pullets at an early age will scratch at the feeder with their feet while cockerels will just go up to the feeder and eat. I checked on this behavior and found the distinction to be accurate. It was easy to verify when observing my auto sexing legbars since I already knew which were which.

Hmmm, I will have to check this out, but I can see how it could be true! Got a bunch right now, only a few days old, and about 1/2 of them do this.

 

[CarpCharacin]

I understand. With ducks and peafowl, for me, I found the weight chart to be a good guide. if gaining a normal amount of weight, those at the top end were always male, those at the bottom always female.

I'm not totally sure, but I feel like that might not be as good of a guide for chickens, since like I said, there are weight variances in breeds, but if the weight difference could be expressed in something like a percentage, it might work, however I'm not sure if the weight difference is the same across breeds.

 

[CarpCharacin]

The idea would be to create a some sort of scale or checklist that's not too difficult to score, that would be a good predictor of whether the chick is a rooster or not.

 

[aart]

The experiment design is viable,
it's using the general public as data collectors where things will get wonky subjective.

Besides, who can't wait 6 weeks to tell gender?

 

[CarpCharacin]

The experiment design is viable,
it's using the general public as data collectors where things will get wonky subjective.

Besides, who can't wait 6 weeks to tell gender?

I think it would be nice to be able to tell sooner, but you're right, that could be a problem with the data collection. That's why I think it's best to make the criteria on the initial checklist open to as little interpenetration as possible by having specific items on the checklist, record the responses to that, and then wait and see if the birds end up being roosters or not.

 

[aart]

I think it would be nice to be able to tell sooner,

I hatched my first sexlinks last year,so I could tell gender as soon as they were good and dry..and it was kinda cool, but still just 'disappointment 6 weeks early'.
Now this year it really paid off as I sold all the pullet chicks as day olds.

 

[Acre4Me]

my experience early sparring = 100% rooster

We have 26 straight run chicks that are 10-11 days old across 10 breeds. We have 2 of these chicks that have stood their ground from the get-go when we reach in the brooder. They will also try to peck or attack the hand briefly. All others run, but one or two others hesitate before they run away. Obviously, we likely have 10-15 males in this batch of chicks, so not all of them are standing their ground or sparring. Haven't noticed any play fighting yet, but maybe not caught it.

@red horse ranch noticed that pullets at an early age will scratch at the feeder with their feet while cockerels will just go up to the feeder and eat.

Hmmm... of this batch of straight run, there are several that will try to scratch the feed with their feet if I put some in a small/ short container. Cant say it is always the same ones, though.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I never quite understand what others don’t understand about how to prove / disprove theses things... but here is how I would go about it:

 

[aart]

these chicks that have stood their ground from the get-go when we reach in the brooder. They will also try to peck or attack the hand briefly.

See now I had a pullet who did that...she actually ended up being one of the gentlest birds, and one hell of a layer.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I never quite understand what others don’t understand about how to prove / disprove theses things... but here is how I would go about it:

Oops ... my post got cut off ( and it came off far more snarky than it was intended ). ...

Anyway, I was saying how I read all these posts about pointy eggs being male, chicks that don’t cower being males, etc...

... and it seems to me that to easily test this you could raise sex-linked or auto-sexing breeds and follow these observations and prove or disprove these things quite easily and take all of the guess work and inconsistent data collection out of the puzzle...