Roosters in town and sex links

[starri33]

I can have Roo's, I've bought the black Sex Links hoping for all hens which I got, but there is a chance no matter what you do or who does it that you can have a roo slip in, if your person who does sexing for a living messes up, then those of us who have not had professional training or have been doing it for years don't stand much of a chance of telling.

 

[sylviethecochin]

I have another thread on this site about sex links and others have chimed in that black and red sex links are 100% accurate. Barred rocks aren't hard to gender. I could go into a farm store right now and get all pullets out of a straight run bin. Garuntee it.

Sex links are different than an autosexing breed. Red and black sex links (as well as gold sexlinks) are 100% accurate. Austosexing birds (Wellsummers, Cream Legbars, Barred Rocks) are not.

You could go to the Barred Rock bin and pull out ten pullets. I don't deny that. But can you guarantee that you could go to that farm store, put two bins down, and accurately put all of the female chicks in one bin, and all of the males in another? Some birds are obvious males, some are obvious females. About twenty-thirty percent are really hard to tell. And, at least at my TSC, there are a few ladies who come down, do exactly what you just described, and leave mostly males for the next people trying to pull out straight run.

 

[leighks]

Here is my black sex link “hen”. I got this one from a small family hatchery at 2 days old, and he looked exactly like a black sex link pullet chick- no white spot on head to indicate this was a male. I can have roosters where I am so it wasn’t a problem, but obviously this was an oops breeding and mistakes happen.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Yes they doView attachment 1847593

I have to disagree with you.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

So.... to OP.... you made a mistake, or got ripped off, your first time out, and inadvertently purchased roos when you expected something different, right? But you seem to have no sympathy, tolerance or understanding when the same thing happens to other newbies. As I've read this thread in all one sitting, it sounds like others have had the same experience as you - they got burned once, and learned from it and are now doing things differently. Just like you! Nobody, it seems, goes back and tries the same thing again, year after year, and goes, "Darn! They did it to me AGAIN!" They learn, they study, they educate themselves, they try different breeds, etc.

I think you need to cut people some slack. And maybe have this conversation with your mom. This is, after all, really about her, isn't it?

 

[locoyosh]

We bought 6 "Black Sex Link pullets" at Tractor Supply and 3 turned out to be roosters. We thought, "how can that be when the males are supposed to have a white spot on their head and these didn't?" Turns out they weren't even Black Sex Links! So they not only had the gender wrong, but the breed also. I think from now on we'll skip the chicks and just get older pullets to avoid the rooster dilemma.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Ok..
Here's another question..
People that live in town that buy those little chinsey coop kits and that can't own roosters can only own like what 4 birds max?
So why go to the farm store and buy 8 straight run chicks hoping to get 4 hens and get 8 roosters?
Isn't that kinda dumb?
Why not just go buy 4 pullets old enough to gender for a extra price?
There not buying that many chickens in the first place.
What's the big deal to pay a little more?

I agree. Although, I must say that in buying sexed pullet chicks (EDT: I'm emphasising chicks. Wasn't buying older birds; those really add up if you want more than three), I've never had a male crop up out of the bunch. Not that I buy chicks (shipped or feed store) that often--I'd say maybe fifty-sixty, counting when i was a kid and my parents were doing the buying.

EDT: I also understand why someone might want to buy chicks. Less chance of disease, and there's a lot more selection. Besides, people who are raising them to be pets probably want friendly chicks, and pullets raised by a hatchery or a local farm generally are not.

Also, sexing is differentiating one sex from another. Gendering is associating a sex with a thing (or person or animal.) A chicken is sexed, a plastic baby doll is gendered. (Sorry, I know that this is semantics. But it's bothering me.)

 

[HuffleClaw]

Yeah, but who wants those ugly things?

Me, actually. I love silkies.

 

[Jrnguyen]

I teach in a rural district and every spring our ag center gives eggs to the campuses to hatch. After hatch, the chicks are either adopted or culled. Our campus hatched 5 chicks and no one wanted them, so I adopted all 5. I live in a "4 max, no roo" area, but I took them all anyways knowing there was a good chance at least one would be a roo. I ended up with 2 of the 5 being roos and had to re-home them. Don't regret my decision in the least. There was no point in having 5 perfectly healthy chicks culled because there was a chance some could end up roos. My point is, people have all kinds of reasons for doing the things they do. If you don't like seeing the rehoming posts, keep on scrolling!

 

[Jrnguyen]

Makes sense to me..
If you can't roosters and can't have a breed of dog.
What's the difference?

Um, the difference is, we may not know that we have roosters when we get them. That's kind of the point of this thread. There would be little possibility of my thinking I'm getting a Chihuahua and ending up with a great Dane by accident and needing to re-home it.