Sexing 2 week old barnyard mix

[Susanwhitten28]

Anyone really good at deciphering roos and hens with baby chicks I need some help I know I have at least 3 shorter wings means roo ? More feathers mean hen ? Any Tips will be greatly appreciated

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Feather sexing is only for specific crosses. Otherwise it's as reliable as flipping a coin for each bird

 

[JacinLarkwell]

The ones with tail feathers and long wings are girls. The ones with no tail feathers and short wings are boys. Could you happen to number the photos for each chick.

Only for specific crosses. You have to use a fast feathing male over a slow feathering female to get those results

 

[Wezdin]

It is too early to tell, unless you know breed there's no way to tell. Wing sexing can be very unreliable with mixes. If you post pics in a few weeks we should be able to help.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This thread talks about how to sex chicks by certain characteristics. Typically these characteristics show up around 5 weeks. On very rare occasions I've been able to sex a chick pretty much at hatch, posture can make it obvious. But that is really rare. I've had some reach 16 weeks before I was absolutely sure. It's not always as easy as I wish it were. I find it is easier to say this is absolutely a boy than it is to say this is a girl. Some boys just don't develop those characteristics as early as others. Experience does help.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=48329

This thread talks about how you can sex chicks based on sex linked genes. This includes red sex links, black sex links, and feather sexing. Feather sexing is what you are talking about. It is a long thread, the first post is the one you want. For this to work you have to have the parents set up correctly genetically. Once you make a sex link it doesn't work for the next generation. Once you make the cross future generations are not going to be set up correctly fort it to work. If they are barnyard mixes you don't know how they are set up genetically.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261208

There are a few autosexing breeds. Yours are barnyard mixes so that will not apply to yours.

Hatcheries use vent sexing to determine sex. Specially trained people squeeze the poop out of a chick at hatch and look into the vent to determine if it has boy parts or girl parts. They know how to squeeze the poop out of a chick without hurting it and they know what to look for.

If you post photos of the chicks after 5 weeks we might be able to help. I find it easier to do in person than by photos but we can try. Provide two photos of each chick. One photo should show the head up close so we can see the comb and wattles if it has any. The other photo should show the profile and posture as well as a good shot of the legs. At five weeks it is too early to look for saddle and hackle feathers. Tell us their age.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

Anyone really good at deciphering roos and hens with baby chicks I need some help I know I have at least 3 shorter wings means roo ? More feathers mean hen ? Any Tips will be greatly appreciated

Nope.
You can't use feather to sex chicks EVER unless they are a specific cross. Which is fast feathering parent x slow feathering parent.
Yours are NOT feather sexable.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know @TheOddOneOut, it's worked for me. I don't what to cause an argument.

We all have different flocks. They are set up differently. The science says you cannot count on feather sexing (or any sex linked sexing) unless you know how the parents are set up genetically. I don't know how yours is set up. It is possible that purely by accident yours is set up correctly for it to work. There is also something called coincidence, it may have just been luck. I don't know nearly enough of your flock's backstory to have a clue as to what happened but I don't doubt what you have seen.

Just because something works for me doesn't mean it will work for you. We are all unique in many many things. I think a lot of the arguments and hurt feelings on here are caused by this. Some people can be easily offended and some people can be abrasive. To me it's not worth an argument but maybe a bit of understanding can help.

The OP's flock is a barnyard mix according to the thread title. That pretty much assures that they don't know how the parents were set up genetically so they cannot count on feather sexing to work. With them being mixes the odds are really high that it won't work. But that is just odds, stranger things have happened.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've got one question, when I by my bantams from the feed store, I feather sex them, I usually get them all right but 1 or 2. And half the time I don't even know the breed. Is it just a coincidence?

I would think so. The science says it is. If it were that easy why don't most hatcheries sell sexed bantams? They are too small for quick vent sexing.

 

[sourland]

i wing sex my mixed chicks. I ve had 97% good outcome on wing sexing, at least for my chicks.
I also sex my pure breds like that.

You're good - even better than vent sexing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know. They do feather sex the standards sometimes. We were watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Row. He went to Murry Mcmurry Hatchery and they were feather sexing standard chicks.

I saw that Mike Rowe episode. They were vent sexing. Season 1, episode 7. They seemed to like squeezing the poop out of the vent so they could see inside the vent. You don't need to squeeze the poop out to feather sex. You may want to watch that episode again.

They do use feather sexing at hatcheries too. Not with pure breeds but with crosses set up so they can, mainly with meat birds. They could set up breeds to feather sex, including bantams. That would require selective breeding to develop one flock that has the fast feathering-gene to produce the father, and a second flock for the slow-feathering gene to produce the mother, then a third flock to produce the hatching eggs that could be feather sexed. That means after they develop the two grandparent flocks they would have to maintain three separate flocks to produce bantam chicks that could be feather sexed. That does not sound like a profitable business model to me, not with all the different bantam breeds they have.