I went out a little after daylight this morning and found that my broody hen had hatched 6 new members to add to my chicken flock. As is the normal percentage rate about 50% roosters – 50% pullets, I have 3 pullets and 3 roosters. She {the broody hen} is still setting on 6 eggs! Someone slipped a couple of extra eggs in her nest when I wasn’t looking.. At any rate I will give her until Friday night to hatch anymore viable eggs, then the remaining eggs go into the garbage and the hen will be put back in with the flock.
Chicken Sex is fairly easy to determine if you know the secret to feather sexing day old chicks. This is a visual examination of the chicks wing feathers to determine it’s sex. I found this site with all the information you will need in sexing your new day old chicks. Feather Sexing Chickens is provided by University of Missouri – Animal Sciences – College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
You can save a lot of time, money and effort by sexing day old chicks and only keeping the pullets. Unless you plan on raising the rooster for meat birds or you need a breeding rooster, it is best to sell or give away all the roosters that you hatch. It requires a great deal of time, effort and feed to get these birds to butcher weight. Click picture to Zoom-In
One note of Caution: Feather sexing chickens can only be accomplished when the chicks are 1 or 2 days old. Birds grow so fast that by day 3 it is ‘Very’ difficult or impossible to use this method to determine the sex of chickens.
Why is common sense so uncommon?
Don’t be Shy. Leave me your comment(s)
You can actually tell as soon as they hatch. Little roosters will have shorter wings than hens. Once they get more feathers you can look at the neck and saddle feathers (feathers on the back between the wings). Roosters will have a pointed tip on the these feathers but hens will be rounded. The exception to this is seabright chicks. Both male and female of this breed have rounded feather tips. The difference in these feathers can usually be seen before other distinguishing features become apparent.
I grew up on a farm and we had chickens but I never knew this.
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If I ever decide to grow chickens, I will remember this! – Kaye
I had no idea you could tell the difference right away. I can’t tell you how many “chickens” we’ve had turn into roosters on the sly! LOL. Well, we’ve got a brooder sitting on 6, and I will most definitely use this method. Thanks for a great post.
Re: Libby Keane – Thanks for finding time to visit my tiny blog.
Grinning, just don’t wait to long..by the time they are 3 days old this wing feather sexing method will no longer work, by day 3 both sexes wing feathers will look the same.
Just found this information on sexing chicks to be very helpful, I wish I had seen this when my chicks were younger as they are now a week old. However I have more chicks to be hatched so will definately refer to this with them, thank you so much.
Thank you for finding time to visit my tiny blog.
Grin… Yes… I also at times find chicks sexy, well what really mean is, sometimes I need to sex chicks to sort out who stays and who goes!
~Pobept
I am lovin’ this blog! Everything is so well-written, so informative, I’ll be back again and again for more of your organic brain food. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!
Wendy
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