sexing chicks??

[the funny farm6]

Is there any way to tell the sex of chicks? I have heard to hold a needle and thread if it swings back and forth is male and if it circles it is a female, and I heard that females get their tail feathers before the males. Any truth to these and do you know of any other ways?

These won't be sex-link

 

[~gd]

Is there any way to tell the sex of chicks? I have heard to hold a needle and thread if it swings back and forth is male and if it circles it is a female, and I heard that females get their tail feathers before the males. Any truth to these and do you know of any other ways?

These won't be sex-link

There is the tried and true method of vent sexing that is used by hatcheries. I am not going to try and tell anyone how to do it but basically the vent is opened hoping to see sex organs. check BYC, theremay be more there.

 

[Wannabefree]

My Delaware chicks I can usually tell because the boys won't have tail feathers when the girls first start getting theirs, and the legs on the boys are thicker. It's pretty accurate generally speaking. I guess I get about 80% accuracy with that way of doing it. I don't know how to vent sex them, but there are videos on YouTube. I just don't want to hurt them, so won't really try it.

 

[so lucky]

A friend of mine said she used to work in a hatchery, and sexed chicks by looking at their wings. A female has longer primary flight feathers. (I think) She said she had to get proficient at grabbing a chick in each hand, stretching out the wing and determining the sex, throwing it in one pile if it was a male, another if it was a female. This could only be done within 24-36 hours of hatching, reportedly. I have seen this method referenced elsewhere, too. Might be something to it.

 

[the funny farm6]

The chicks I have are a week old and 7 out of 17 are getting their tail feathers.

Funny... just after I made the post my husband came home from work. So I only told him we were going to try the sexing by the needle and thread thing and see what it said we had. According to that, we have 8 females! He held the thread and knew nothing about the tail thing! Wow, weird or accurate??

Now to look at their legs.....

 

[~gd]

A friend of mine said she used to work in a hatchery, and sexed chicks by looking at their wings. A female has longer primary flight feathers. (I think) She said she had to get proficient at grabbing a chick in each hand, stretching out the wing and determining the sex, throwing it in one pile if it was a male, another if it was a female. This could only be done within 24-36 hours of hatching, reportedly. I have seen this method referenced elsewhere, too. Might be something to it.

There is but only for certain breeds of chickens [not on ducks, geese and other breeds of chickens] vent sexing works on all.
I don't know if you have ever seen the TV show "Dirty Jobs" where the guy goes all over to do dirty jobs. Since there is usually a bit of poop in the vent, vent sexing qualified as a dirty job.

 

[the funny farm6]

The ones with tails comming in all have longer wing feathers- the one that sexed female but no tail feathers yet DOES have the longer wing feathers. Hmmm. I will be keeping all of these so it might be neat to find out what I realy have.

 

[Beekissed]

http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/reprod/ReproTech/Feathersex/sld006.htm

Sexing chicks with wing feathers....I've found this to be a true method.

 

[snapshot]

Thanks Bee! That makes it look easy!!!!!! And non-invasive!

 

[the funny farm6]

Does this work on all breeds?