What age do you....

[jessierose]

...put your babies outside?
...feel you KNOW what gender yours are?
...sell your birds?


I have heard several opinions about each question and just wondered what some of your answers would be. Also, when (and if) you do sell yours, how much do you sell young pullets for and how much do you sell roos for?

 

[gritsar]

My chicks were brooded outside, in a shed with electricity. I kept the temps. the same as I would have if they were brooded inside. 90 to 95 the first week, decreasing by 5 degrees a week. I added a draft guard around their brooder to be extra sure they weren't exposed to any drafts.
Note: The 90 to 95 degree rule is what the books say. My chicks always preferred it about 10 degrees cooler.
I started suspecting I had extra roos at 5 weeks old and was sure by 7 weeks. It helped that I only had one breed, so I was comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges.
As soon as I was sure they were roos, I found homes for them. No sense feeding and caring for an animal you can't keep.

 

[HBuehler]

My chicks are also kept in a brooder outside-a playpen here since brooder sounds so frumpy Depending on the weather they go out to play around 2 weeks old for short periods of time.
Age for sexing...that really depends on the breed.I can start spotting little roos in the leghorn pen around a week old by 3 weeks it's obvious.Then some breeds take much longer 6-8 weeks.Peacomb chicks are the hardest to get right imo.Some breeds feather sex pretty accurately as well.
We sell ours at a day old if I'm selling straight run chicks but if I'm wanting to keep a certain gender then I wait until I'm sure.Price depends on so many things starting with the breed-more common chicks don't bring as much as a more rare variety then you have quality are they higher quality or were they hatchery stock parents etc.

 

[jelmer]

hbuehler how do you sex your leghorns?

 

[HBuehler]

Leghorns are not that hard to sex as long as you have more than one or two.Around 7 days if you look at them close you will start seeing some with larger combs than others those have always turned out to be Roos for us then by 2-3 weeks the slower roos are coming on fine...and the first to be spotted will be turning real red.
You may not get perfect sexing that young but you will get a real good idea...this works with most of the white egg layers but as I always tell people when they buy one real young "no guarantee"

This picture there is a bunch of breeds-all 3 weeks old mostly pullets but the leghorns and Blue Andalusians are mixed..Little Roo is pretty easy to spot(he was banded at 6 days as a roo).Sorry I can't find the picture of them even younger on this computer.Apparently the EE's were mixed as well since there is a roo in my pullets

 

[jelmer]

ok thanks