Sexing at a hatchery

[smoothmule]

Thought this was interesting enough to pass on

 

[slaird61]

Wow that is really interesting! I wonder if feather sexing like that works for every breed? I was surprised at how rough the hatchery people and machines were with the chicks.

Chicks are a lot less fragile than I thought. I can't wait for the hatchery workers to chunk my little bitties down a shoot and dump them in a box for me on February 23rd!

 

[speckledhen]

No, feather sexing only works if they are bred for it.

 

[Hottchick]

When I bought my babies, the breeder wing sexed them for me. I bought 7 from him and he was correct with all of them. Of course, they were 2-3 weeks old when I got them. They were different breeds--New Hampshire, Brahma, Cuckoo Marans and an EE.

 

[pdsavage]

Quote:
yep thats the way it works.
Feather sexing is easy, but it requires that the chickens be specially bred to manifest their sex in differences in the feathers as hatchlings. These are usually hybrids rather than true breeds, and are called sex linked chickens. Female chickens in these breeds have longer wing pinfeathers than the males do, which makes them relatively easy to tell apart. Most chickens do not have these traits bred into them, and the hatchlings are identical to all but the skilled eye of the professional chicken sexer.

 

[speckledhen]

Cuckoo Marans, Dominiques and Barred Rocks can all be sexed at hatch by color traits, no feather sexing needed. I sex my BRs all the time with very rare mistakes.

 

[Caddy-Corner-Chick]

Very interesting... I was thinking of that one episode of dirty jobs when Mike Rowe flipped them over to see if they had a thingy or not..lol