Determining the sex of a growing chick is especially important for professional breeders. In this way, they can chart for themselves the amount of future profits, as well as control the number of roosters per number of hens in one flock. To learn how to do this, and what to be guided by when determining the sex of birds, read this article.
We take into account the age
You can distinguish chickens by gender almost from their very birth, not to mention the age when they are covered with feathers and already feed on their own. There are many methods and techniques for correctly determining the sex of a future bird. Some of them are almost 100% reliable, while others are folk methods. In order to be sure of your result, you need to use several methods.
If the chickens have just hatched, then you can determine the future rooster by the feathers – they are slightly lighter in him than in the female. This method works if less than a day has passed since the chicks hatched.
It is during this period of the chick’s life that the Japanese method, which has high accuracy, falls. Read about it below.
A little later, at about the age of two or three days, in future males, you can notice a difference in the color of the feathers on the wings. They are lighter in him than in the laying hen. On the third day after hatching, this color difference becomes less noticeable. When the chicks are already 2 weeks old, you can find out the sex by the tail. In males, it grows more slowly, and over time, they develop rounded feathers on the tail. By this time, females are distinguished by yellow plumage, and males are reddish.
The age of three weeks is associated with great changes for the chicks. In females, feathers actively begin to grow, while in males these changes occur a little later. But by this time they become noticeably larger than females and begin to fight for food and for the best place. It is during this period that differences in the behavior of different sexes become apparent.
At the age of 1 month, males can be distinguished from hens by much more aggressive behavior. It is the monthly bettas that begin to differ from the hens in their greater mass and, in general, a little faster development. Only cockerels are covered with feathers later than laying hens.
When the chickens are already 1,5 months old, the males can be distinguished by scallops and beards. The beard of males has a yellow tint. Later they can be distinguished by more massive and longer legs than laying hens. Each of these changes depends on the number of weeks that have passed since the chicks hatched, and they can be observed up to 2,5 months.
At the age of three months, young males develop spurs, and their combs are painted bright red. The female scallops are yellow and small in size. At the age of 4 months, the differences between males and females become apparent.
It is worth remembering that all of the above methods may not always be reliable. This is due to the fact that individual breeds have their own developmental features.
It should be noted that in general, males are slightly larger than females from the first day of life. They have more powerful and longer legs, they are much more active and even aggressive. In roosters at short life spans, this difference is small, but over time it increases more and more. There are several ways to determine the sex of a future individual also by egg. They are not very accurate, but are often used and even gained a certain amount of popularity. This process can be carried out only before incubation or in the first week. Onor include such methods.
- The egg is taken in hand and carefully examined. The egg, which has a rounded shape, “carries” the female in itself. An egg with a more angular and elongated end is a male.
- A laying hen lives in eggs with a smooth, elongated end, and a cockerel lives in tubercles.
- For the next method, you will need a flashlight. It is necessary to enlighten the egg, while moving from the sharp end to the blunt one, and find an air pocket. If it is located in the middle of the egg, then usually the embryo inside is a male. If it is shifted to either side, then most likely it is a female. For convenience, when carrying out this method, an ovoscope is increasingly used today. The eggs on it must be arranged in such a way that the light goes from the sharp end to the blunt one. Further, by analogy, you need to try to detect an air pocket and follow the algorithm already described above.
Some farmers have noticed that laying hens hatch faster than males. Simply put, most of the first chicks to hatch are female. Of course, it is not necessary to talk about the high accuracy of such a peculiar way of determining sex. Sometimes everything can depend on the health of the hen that laid the egg and the individual development of the embryo. With artificial hatching of eggs, as well as their cultivation in an incubator, the proportion of subsequently hatched male chicks reaches 70%.
The subtleties of determining the sex of a chicken in the video below.
Japanese way of determining
The Japanese method, also called ventsexig, can distinguish roosters from laying hens with high accuracy. Its feature is high accuracy. The complexity of this method lies in the possible lack of experience, as well as strict time periods. The chicks must have been hatched for at least 5 hours, but not more than 15 hours. Less than 5 hours after hatching, the chick is very tender and fragile. During this period, it is easy to damage. After the incident, 15 hours after the “birth”, a fold forms in the chicken, which makes it difficult to reliably determine the sex.
This method is based on a banal knowledge of the structure of the reproductive organs of birds. The mating process in birds occurs through the connection of the anus of females and males. In the cloaca, the oviducts are excreted in the hens, and in the cockerels, the oviducts. The latter have a so-called genital tubercle, which must be found during ventseksig.
The instructions for this method include the following steps.
- Carefully pick up the chicken and gently press on his stomach. This is done in order to ensure maximum output of natural waste and cleansing of the chick’s anus.
- Now you need to remove all the feces from the area around the chick’s anus. The easiest way to do this is with a slightly damp swab.
- After you need to turn the chick over, push its legs apart in order to expose the cloaca. Gently press on the stomach.
- The cloaca is closely examined. The future rooster differs from the chicken by the presence of a small protrusion or process in the cesspool from the side of the abdomen. The cloaca of the female does not have a pronounced process. It is a red knot without any bulges.
- You need to place the chicks in separate sections depending on their gender.
To conclude this chapter, it is worth noting that up to 700 chicks per hour can be distributed using this method. It must be remembered that hygiene must be observed in order not to infect the chicks. It is also worth considering the high level of fragility of the chicks after hatching, as mentioned above. This is very important, so if the person conducting this procedure does not have enough experience, then it is best to refuse it.
reflex way
Intricate at first glance, the name hides a method that is based on the difference in the reactions of different sexes to disturbing factors. It is noteworthy that this method is also highly effective for chicks of almost all ages – from a week old to a month old.
Another feature of the reflex method is that it includes a group of simple experiments with observations, which we will discuss below.
- For the first way to determine the difference between a cockerel and a laying hen, it is necessary to turn the chick upside down. If he tries to raise his head or turns it in order to look around, then this is a cockerel. If the bird is passive and draws its head into the body, then this is a laying hen. It is necessary to remember the fragility of chickens, so you need to take them carefully and try not to turn them upside down quickly.
- For the second “experiment” you need to take the chicken by the scruff and lift it slightly above the surface. The cockerel will hang or look around, the laying hen will press its paws against the body.
- During this observation, it is necessary to scare the chick. If he begins to hide near perches, then this is a female. If the chick tries to repel the attack, then this is a rooster. Sometimes it happens that at first they are frightened, but then they try to move on to the attack.
Other methods
A well-known method among breeders for determining sex is weighing. Males are 1-2 grams heavier than laying hens already at the age of one day after hatching. But the chicks are very mobile, so this method is not very convenient, since the scale error level is high during the process. The method of determining the sex by size is also used. Males have larger heads and paws than laying hens.
Another fairly well-known method for determining sex is by wings and feathers. Cockerels have a larger wingspan, on which flight feathers are located. They are also longer in males than in laying hens. In addition, these feathers are the same length. In females, feathers are rare and of different lengths.
Later, long feathers of the same length will form a wide flap of cock wings, and short ones will help females to become covered with feathers earlier. We wrote about another method of determining with the help of feathers above – in laying hens, downy feathers appear earlier. In general, the accuracy of the method of determining by wings and feathers can reach from 60 to almost 80%.
Birds can also be distinguished by color. True, this method only works with thoroughbred chickens. Cockerels of the Cross breed are white in color, and laying hens are beige or yellow. With the breeds “Legbar” and “Leghorn” everything is much simpler. Roosters are distinguished by striped coloration, and laying hens are born in one color (gray, black or white). Males of the Adler silver breed have a black stripe on their heads, unlike females. In the New Hampshire and Rhode Island breeds, on the contrary, black stripes appear in laying hens on the second day after hatching, while males do not.
In general, sex determination by color for thoroughbred chickens is the simplest method of all. Determine the sex of individuals and gait. In cockerels, it is impetuous, their step is wide. They tend to lift their legs high when walking. Laying hens walk, raising and lowering their legs in the rhythm of walking.
A method that guarantees a 100% reliable result is called cytogenetic. The chromosome set of each chicken is examined. It is known to differ in both sexes of all animals. The chromosome that distinguishes females is called ZW. The distinctive male chromosome is called ZZ. This method is quite expensive and is carried out using special equipment, so only professional breeders can afford it. Feathers or any other cellular material is used as a biomaterial. This method is used when the need for accurate sex determination is very important, as well as when there are tight deadlines.
Another similar technique is DNA gender identification. Another name for it is the molecular genetic method. The method is a blot hybridization of DNA with a primer. It also features high accuracy and non-budget price. Since this method requires blood samples from the chicks, it can be quite stressful for them. It is considered one of the most time-consuming and costly ways to determine gender.
In conclusion, it should be noted that a herd with a predominant number of males is bred for meat, and with a large number of females for eggs. By the way, the optimal number of individuals in one herd is 1 cock for 10 hens. With more roosters, they may start to fight for territory and females. Actually, because of these considerations, it is important to immediately correctly get ahead of the sex of the future bird.
Only expensive scientific methods can give an absolutely correct result., but there are other methods, such as Japanese, which have a high level of accuracy, while the rest can give different results.
The most correct solution is to use several types of methods, as mentioned above. Remember that only at first the appearance and behavior of the chicks seems to be the same, in fact, there are quite a lot of differences between males and laying hens.
