Although this method is usually used when sexing crossbreeds, there are a few standard breeds of chickens that can sometimes be sexed in this manner-the Barred Rock, New Hampshire, and Buff Orpington breeds do present backyard chicken keepers a gift on occasion. All Barred Rock chicks that sport a lovely yellow head spot are males. Now, New Hampshire and Buff Orpington babes that hatch out with a black spot on their wee little heads are females, while newly hatched chicks with a gentle brushstroke of creamy white on their shoulder area are males.
chicken gender identification
Vent sexing is the most accurate, but also the most complex method of deciphering the sex of a chicken. As mentioned above, typically, most larger hatcheries and breeders employ egg-sperienced professional chicken sexers due to the complexity of the process, as well as, the fact that prolonged handling of day old chicks by an inexperienced sexer, can be quite stressful on these precious and fragile babies who are only hours old.
Depending on your experience with raising chickens, you may already have a few favorite techniques of sexing chicks. When it comes to sexing baby chicks, not being able to tell if your birds are pullets (female chicks) or cockerels (male chicks) can be detrimental to your flock. The following are a few methods we tend to use here at Freedom Ranger.
Feather sexing your chicks is one of the best methods that you can use, but it will also depend on the breed of your chickens. In certain breeds, your pullets will be born with wing feathers, while the cockerels will not. Most of the time, you can only tell the difference between the feathers within the first few days of hatching until they look the same.
Freedom Ranger Hatchery, Inc. provides high-quality chickens for sale at our certified poultry hatchery. Our black broiler chicks are hearty and robust. We also have baby ducks for sale for farmers and families alike.
This PDF from Aviagen.com has a step-by-step guide with pictures on how to properly feather sex a chicken. Consult it before trying this yourself, and make a special note of how to properly hold the chick while sexing it.
In cases where the parents of chicks came from two different breeds, you can actually use the color of the down feathers to sex a chicken. If the parents of a chick are both from the same breed of chicken, this will not work. However, if you mix two separate breeds, the down is a great indicator of gender.
Chick sexing is the method of distinguishing the sex of chickens and other hatchlings, usually by a trained person called a chick sexer or chicken sexer.[1] Chicken sexing is practiced mostly by large commercial hatcheries to separate female chicks or "pullets" (destined to lay eggs for commercial sale) from the males or "cockerels" (most of which are killed within days of hatching because they are irrelevant to egg production). The females and a limited number of males kept for meat production are then put on different feeding programs appropriate for their commercial roles.
Different segments of the poultry industry sex chickens for various reasons. In farms that produce eggs, males are unwanted; for meat production, separate male and female lines for breeding are maintained to produce the hybrid birds that are sold for the table, and chicks of the wrong sex in either line are unwanted. Chicks of an unwanted sex are killed almost immediately to reduce costs to the breeder.[2][3]
Vent sexing, also known simply as venting, involves squeezing the feces out of the chick, which opens up the chick's anal vent (called a cloaca) slightly, allowing the chicken sexer to see if the chick has a small "bump", which would indicate that the chick is a male. Some females also have bumps, though they are rarely as large as those of male chicks.[4]
The eminence or genital organ is found midway on the lower rim of the vent, and looks like a very small pimple. Most males have a relatively prominent eminence, most females have none. However, a small proportion of both males and female have relatively small eminences. Sexing these chickens can be quite difficult, but with regular practice, the sexer will eventually learn to identify the differences.
Chicks of some breeds can be sexed with fair accuracy soon after hatching. In Barred Rock chickens, male chicks tend to have a large and distinct pale spot on the head, while hen chicks have a smaller and less defined spot. This is due to the effects of the incompletely dominant barred (B) gene.[7] Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red chicks with chipmunk stripes are almost always females.[8]
Small poultry farmers whose operations are not of sufficient size to warrant hiring a chicken sexer must wait until the hatchlings are four to six weeks old before learning the sexes of their chickens. At that time, their secondary sex characteristics begin to appear, making it possible for anyone with a minimal amount of training to sex a chicken.
Instrument or machine sexing of chickens has almost disappeared, because the instruments are no longer available, and spare parts cannot be obtained. The Keeler Optical (English) or Chicktester (Japanese) machine features a blunt-ended telescopic tube, containing a light. The sexer inserts the tube into the evacuated cloaca and with the help of the light can identify either testis or ovaries. Successful development of this technique depends on the capability of the students and their level of experience.
When purchasing chickens from a hatchery or feed store, remember that even chicks being sold as female (aka: sexed, pullets) risk being male. Even the most reliable sexing methods used by commercial poultry operations have a margin of error and sometimes chicks get mixed up in the bins at the feed store. The take-home message? Always have a plan for roosters if you cannot keep them.Some methods of sexing chickens should be left to trained professionals, some methods can be used only in specific circumstances and others are just as accurate as guessing the outcome of a coin toss at the start of a football game. Most sexing methods are NOT useful to the casual backyard chicken keeper, so I will touch on them briefly while supplying links for further reading and more information about those methods.
Vent sexing sounds and appears very straightforward, but it is a true art form, which should not be attempted by backyard chicken keepers. When improperly performed, day old chicks are at risk of disembowelment and death. Amateurs are not likely to read the anatomy with any degree of accuracy greater than a coin toss anyway, so please stick with the coin toss at home.
At the risk of mortifying geneticists everywhere, gross oversimplifications follow.SEX LINKED GENDER DETERMINATIONA sex-linked chicken is one whose gender can be determined by its appearance shortly after hatching either by down color or the growth rate of certain wing feathers. COLOR SEXINGHow does it work? The gender of certain chicks can be sexed by the color of their down at hatch.
These are NOT Accurate Methods for Chick SexingEvery accurate, cost-effective method of determining gender at the earliest possible moment is already in use by commercial hatcheries. Commercial hatcheries and breeders lose money when they hatch male chicks, so it is in their financial interest to employ accurate sexing methods. So any time someone suggests a fail-proof, do-it-yourself method of chick sexing, ask yourself whether commercial hatcheries are using it. If not, you can be quite certain it is either not accurate, not cost-effective or just plain silly.
Dr. Maria-Elisabeth Krautwald-Junghanns, a professor at the University of Leipzig, received an award for her breakthrough discovery of a method to determine the gender of chickens within the eggshell as early as day 3 of incubation, at which point the embryo does not feel pain. With the use of laser technology, a microscopic hole is made in the eggshell and the resulting light pattern is then examined and interpreted by scientists. The hole is sealed and the male eggs can then be used for other purposes such as in animal feeds. The technology is projected to be ready for use by 2017.
It is vital to determine the sex of chickens early in order to separate them for their appropriate uses. Hens of egg-laying breeds are typically kept for egg production. Males are often culled. Both males and females are useful as meat in breeds specifically developed for meat production.
It is easy to identify the sex of adult chickens. It is also relatively simple to sex a chick that is newly hatched. It is trickier to determine the sex of adolescent birds, because they have not yet developed their adult characteristics. It is ideal to sex chicks that are only one to two days old and separate the males and females. Failing this, there are a few ways to determine the sex of older chickens.
The easiest way to determine the sex of an adolescent chicken is by examining the feathers on the bird's neck. A female chicken has rounded feathers, and a male has pointed feathers. It is simple to check these feathers. Simply pick up the bird and hold it securely under one arm. Take a sturdy piece of card like an index card or credit card and place it under a row of the chicken's feathers at the back of the neck. If the feathers have pointed ends, the bird is likely male. If the feathers are more rounded, the bird is probably female.
A pullet is a female chicken under one year of age. A pullet will have a smaller comb on top of its head and a smaller wattle underneath its beak. A cockerel is a male chicken under one year of age. A cockerel will have a larger comb and wattle. The comb will stand erect, while a pullet's comb will usually fold over to the side.
The spur is the toe-like growth at the back of a chicken's leg. It curves upward. Males have a larger spur, because they need the spur to cling to the hen during mating. Locate the spur and compare it to a known male or female of approximately the same age, or compare several birds for size. 2ff7e9595c
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