Hello everyone! As relatively new chicken owners my OH and I have been regularly dipping into BYC threads over the past few months as guests. Apart from being a tremendous source of useful information on everything chicken, the friendly atmosphere of BYC is one of the most welcoming I've come across on the internet. So first off, thanks to all who work on and contribute to this site, I'm looking forward to participating!
As a recent hatcher of eggs destined for a small (and predominantly female) flock, one topic I've been researching dilligently is that of chick sexing. Obviously the feasibility and ease of doing this (non-venting methods apart) varies from breed to breed, but there is a large volume of kindly and potentially useful advice out there, much of it contained in the threads of forums on this site. However, little if any of the written advice is nearly as useful as a photo to illustrate differences between males and females. Many such photos are 'out there', but finding the ones relevant to a particular breed at a particular age can be difficult or impossible. This is partly due to their being scattered across the internet, but in many cases I suspect that the relevant photos do not yet exist. For a while now I've been fantasizing about a site where one could look up a particular breed and scroll through loads of photos of males and females of chicks of different ages, a kind of one-stop shop for people wearing the shoes I've been in for the past few months, trying to figure out if and how they can discriminate between their chicks (or those of a seller) on the basis of gender. As important as photos showing diagnostic features that might prove useful for sexing would be photos illustrating overlap between sexes that renders a particular character set problematic or useless for sexing. I'm convinced that such a resource could reveal new features for sexing some breeds, and suugest ways in which existing sexing criteria can be improved or refined.Given the huge popularity of this site, and especially the preponderance of small-flock owners (it's my impression that the smaller the flock, the more time, attention and photographs will take with their flock), I diffidently suggest that this site would be the perfect place to host such a resource. I realise that it would be very easy to start a new thread on this topic, or indeed to contribute to one of the many existing threads out there. However, such threads are bewilderingly diverse to either search or contribute to, and often have a limited active life. I think a much better means of organising such a resource would be to have a distinct space in the BYC homepage for photos of young males and females of different ages, organised by breed. I hope this doesn't come across as being too cheeky, coming from a newbie to the site like myself. If it does, please put this post down to over-enthusiasm and try to forgive me. It may be that I've completely misjudged the intended scope or function of BYC, or that what I'm suggesting would take far more effort to set up than I think it would. If so, please feel free to take advantage of my ignorance and co-opt me into helping organise this!
The other idea I had was for a similar photo resource aimed at people considering mixing different breeds - people could just submit photos of any hybrids of known ancestry, which could then be searched on the breed of either (or both) parents.
It's possible that neither of the above ideas would actually require any extra setting up - maybe all that's needed would be an appeal to all members, iterated every few months, to upload photos of chicks of known breed & sex, or hybrids of known parentage, tag them with the appropriate information, and these could then be searched from the home page? I just don't know enough about how the search engine in this (or any such) website operates to tell if this would be possible.
That's probably quite enough for a first post! Looking forward to hearing what you have to say, hope it's more
than
!
Best wishes,
Mark
Location
Passage West, Co. Cork, Ireland
Flock
3@13 weeks: Hannah (Welsummer), Cutiepie (Hyvrid of exbat ancestry), Joni (Lav Araucana)
4@4 weeks: Harriet (Crem Legbar), Summer and Ghost (Light Sussex), Ember (Barnevelder)
2 in incubator: 1 Buff Orp X unknown Leghorn, 1 Buff Orp X Brown Hyline
As a recent hatcher of eggs destined for a small (and predominantly female) flock, one topic I've been researching dilligently is that of chick sexing. Obviously the feasibility and ease of doing this (non-venting methods apart) varies from breed to breed, but there is a large volume of kindly and potentially useful advice out there, much of it contained in the threads of forums on this site. However, little if any of the written advice is nearly as useful as a photo to illustrate differences between males and females. Many such photos are 'out there', but finding the ones relevant to a particular breed at a particular age can be difficult or impossible. This is partly due to their being scattered across the internet, but in many cases I suspect that the relevant photos do not yet exist. For a while now I've been fantasizing about a site where one could look up a particular breed and scroll through loads of photos of males and females of chicks of different ages, a kind of one-stop shop for people wearing the shoes I've been in for the past few months, trying to figure out if and how they can discriminate between their chicks (or those of a seller) on the basis of gender. As important as photos showing diagnostic features that might prove useful for sexing would be photos illustrating overlap between sexes that renders a particular character set problematic or useless for sexing. I'm convinced that such a resource could reveal new features for sexing some breeds, and suugest ways in which existing sexing criteria can be improved or refined.Given the huge popularity of this site, and especially the preponderance of small-flock owners (it's my impression that the smaller the flock, the more time, attention and photographs will take with their flock), I diffidently suggest that this site would be the perfect place to host such a resource. I realise that it would be very easy to start a new thread on this topic, or indeed to contribute to one of the many existing threads out there. However, such threads are bewilderingly diverse to either search or contribute to, and often have a limited active life. I think a much better means of organising such a resource would be to have a distinct space in the BYC homepage for photos of young males and females of different ages, organised by breed. I hope this doesn't come across as being too cheeky, coming from a newbie to the site like myself. If it does, please put this post down to over-enthusiasm and try to forgive me. It may be that I've completely misjudged the intended scope or function of BYC, or that what I'm suggesting would take far more effort to set up than I think it would. If so, please feel free to take advantage of my ignorance and co-opt me into helping organise this!
The other idea I had was for a similar photo resource aimed at people considering mixing different breeds - people could just submit photos of any hybrids of known ancestry, which could then be searched on the breed of either (or both) parents.
It's possible that neither of the above ideas would actually require any extra setting up - maybe all that's needed would be an appeal to all members, iterated every few months, to upload photos of chicks of known breed & sex, or hybrids of known parentage, tag them with the appropriate information, and these could then be searched from the home page? I just don't know enough about how the search engine in this (or any such) website operates to tell if this would be possible.
That's probably quite enough for a first post! Looking forward to hearing what you have to say, hope it's more
Best wishes,
Mark
Location
Passage West, Co. Cork, Ireland
Flock
3@13 weeks: Hannah (Welsummer), Cutiepie (Hyvrid of exbat ancestry), Joni (Lav Araucana)
4@4 weeks: Harriet (Crem Legbar), Summer and Ghost (Light Sussex), Ember (Barnevelder)
2 in incubator: 1 Buff Orp X unknown Leghorn, 1 Buff Orp X Brown Hyline
