Red Laced Cornish X and project talk (pics p. 8)

[al6517]

Does anybody here do any vent sexing or feather sexing on day old's ???. I have done both with this last hatch and wanted to hear your opinions.

AL

 

[slc]

Quote:
They seem rarer than hen's teeth

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I was up in Travis City a couple or three Aprils ago . We were mowing grass here , still snow drifts on the north side of things there .................................our winters are much shorter and milder .

Traverse City is quite a bit south. I'm talking UPPER Michigan way up above Wisconsin. There is a Northern Michigan and and Upper Michigan. We are farther north than NORTHERN Michigan which is actually part of the LOWER peninsula and then there is UPPER Michigan which is the Upper Peninsula. I think the lower part of the State sometimes forgets we are here above the bridge

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
X2

 

[al6517]

Well I took all of these chicks before their first feeding at Day old's and tried my hand at vent sexing, I held them while slightly applying presure to empty their intestanal track on a napkin which worked just as it should have and easy too, then prolasped the vent and pulled it back some to expose the entire vent. I think I could have done a much better job at it had I owned a large powerful magnifing glass, The results were 3 Cockrels and 8 pullets. Then after marking their head with a Q-tip dipped in green food coloring dabbed a bit on their crowns. Then I feather sexed them which IMO worked much better and easier to see, I ended up with the same amount's 3 & 8 but they were different chicks LOL. so I marked those also, In the end I feel better about the feather sexing only because I couldn't see what I needed to see on the vent sexing, I will buy a Magnifing glass at the next earliest convienance. Then vent sexing wasn't hard to do once you get past the fact that you think your hurting the chicks, but your not and they did just fine. Just a few tip's I thought I'd share.

AL

 

[big medicine]

Well I read the whole thread, about had to use a crutch under my left eye toward the end there. First off, there are some very nice standard Cornish in this group, in all three colors. The Okie gang look like they've got some fine white and WLR working, the darks from Michigan, and was it Illinois also look pretty good.

Questions or comments:

Dominant white- fill me in on this, my limited experience on this is Dad's birds are reccessive white covering dark(red double laced) which would be eb based.

Green legs on whites- I picked up a few white pullets for Dad at a show a year or so back, supposed to be Strait blood. Some of the other birds in the sale pen showed some green in the legs. I suspect they may not be eb based, will show some of our project birds that make me think this. You attributed this trait to a specific breeder, fill me in on that please.

Al, I would like to hear more on your breeder rations, I know Lewis Strait gave Dad his feed recipe, but could not get anybody to grind it because of carry over problems with hog feed I believe. He may still have it somewhere but can not find it, so I don't know what the questionable ingredients were.

If I remember right WLR are single laced, while jubalie are double laced, right ?

Doesn't recessive white give a better coverage than dominant white ?

Vent sexing, did some wild waterfowl several years ago now. I would highly reccomend one of those arm mounted lights with a magnifying lense surrounded by a fluorescent bulb. Use mine for all kinds of close work.

Like has been stated here many times the whites are hard to come by, Dad had to send away to California to get a cockerel a month or so back, after his lone male got old and did not produce anymore. Which was when we experimented a little with his white hens. Some of our side project birds.

which was I expected, now the ones that make wonder if something else was in play are

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[big medicine]

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
you should talk with wooden animal about this! he has really studied up a lot on it and I got to learn a bit from him. What I have picked up so far on feather sexing is you HAVE to have a fast feathering roo and a slow feathering hen (it might be the opposite) to be able to feather sex. Small hatcheries pay a lot of money each season to the big hatcheries for breeders of the "right type" to feather sex. The offspring of these offspring will NOT be feathersexable, although we have heard they will be the opposite and to Johns dismay this did seem to be true his first year. He also had a guy show him some vent sexing technique, but if I recall correctly it wasn't very successfull.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

big medicine you are right the OK bunch has the corner on the cool whites right now, but those are some really nice looking birds you and you dad have!

 

[big medicine]

Thanks, but they have got a long way to go before I would call them Cornish.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
My glasses don't work as well as they used to ; I would need a magnifying lens for vent sexing LOL . I feather sexed my CX when they arrived , it was easy . I don't know how the fast feather gene necessary for feather sexing breeds ...................... its possible my project birds may be carrying the right genetics since they are CX crosses .