HOW TO SEX DAY-OLD CHICKS
(Page 4 of 5)
THE DOWN COLOR SORT
RELATED CONTENT
A beginner's guide to raising rabbits, including a rabbit barn, pens, feeders and waterers, breedin...
Newly hatched chicks can survive about three days without food or water, so they can be shipped fro...
Guide to chick raising, including homemade incubator designs and information on types of incubators...
Where to buy and how to raise day-old chicks....
Not all chicks have to be vent sexed: A variety of crossbreeds can be sorted out by the color and markings of their down. In these cases the juvenile coloring is a sex-linked characteristic . . . that is, the pullets' coloration is determined by mania's gene, the cockerels' by pa's. The most important factor to remember about these pairings is that the method doesn't hold if the breeds of hen and rooster are switched.
1. Gold breed roosters mated to silver and penciled breed hens produce buff or red females and cream, white or smoky males. Either sex may or may not show narrow striping.
Gold breed roosters include Rhode Island Reds and the buff varieties of the following breeds: Leghorn, Minorca, Wyandotte, Plymouth Rock and Cochin.
Silver and penciled hens include; White Wyandotte, Columbian Wyandotte, Silver-laced Wyandotte, Silver-penciled Wyandotte, Columbian Plymouth Rock, Silver-penciled Plymouth Rock, Light Sussex, Light Brahma and Dark Brahma.
In addition, Brown Leghorn, Partridge Wyandotte, Partridge Plymouth Rock and Golden-laced Wyandotte roosters can be crossed with Columbian Wyandotte, Columbian Plymouth Rock, Light Sussex and Light Brahma hens to produce chicks with the same sex-linked distinctions.
2. Barred Rock hens crossed with any brown-head rooster, or with any black or buff variety, produce black males with white head spots and yellow beaks, shanks and toes. The female chicks are all black above with dark beaks, shanks and toes. The same offspring results from the crossing of a Barred Rock hen and any recessive white rooster —White Wyandotte, Langshan, Minorca or Dorking—with the exception of the recessive White Plymouth Rock.
Incidentally, three "pure" or standard breeds produce chicks that can sometimes be sorted on the basis of their down markings. One of these is the Barred Rock . . . hatchlings with yellow head spots are males. Both sexes of New Hampshire and Buff Orpington chicks generally hatch totally buff. Some, however, have a black head spot and are pullets. Others may have off-white streaks through the buff down at the upper wing joints (shoulders), and these are cockerels. The male marking is more common than the female, but is also more difficult to detect.
Before Lyle overhauls a box of buffs, he "sight-sexes" them quickly for markings. The darkest buff chicks tend to be males, but—since that isn't always true—each hatchling of that color goes through the vent check.
THE WING FEATHER SPROUT PATTERN SORT
The A & M Hatchery, like others, stocks two popular hybrid chickens—the meaty Cornish White Rocks and the super layers known as Hi-Line White Leghorns—that have been specially developed to allow sexing from the pattern made by the feather sprouts on their wing tips at hatch.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
Next >>
