29.03.2024

How to determine the sex of a chicken: cock or hen

Only when the Chicks are born, they are very similar to each other. It is little yellow lumps. Therefore, many beginning farmers or poultry farmers when buying Chicks are often faced with the unusual problem of how can you tell a rooster from a chicken, if they like each other as two drops of water.

The ability to determine the sex of tiny chicken is a very important skill for a birder. Why is it so important? Every experienced farmer knows that to breed a litter, you need a certain number of cocks and hens. If he is engaged in cultivation of meat breeds of birds, you probably be disappointed to find in the herd a large number of chickens. Although this activity need more males.

As a birder, diluting egg breed, of course, is not without a healthy and strong chickens. Because, as you know, roosters do not carry eggs. Therefore, it is necessary to know the exact answer to the question “How to determine sex of chicken?”

Experienced growers can easily cope with this problem, and what to do to a beginning farmer? Well to those owners who had such birds, where the color of roosters and hens different colors. But what if all chickens are the same color yellow?

There are both scientificand folk methods of recognition sex of the Chicks at any age.

Scientific methods of determining the sex of a chicken

There are several ways to determine the sex of the chick in vitro. The most popular are Japanese, cytogenetic and molecular genetic methods.

Here, of course, you need to have a great experience with the bird.

  1. Japanese technique is the study of the cloaca. It consists in determining the gender of chickens on the shape and appearance of the cloaca. It is under the bird’s tail. Need to find the genital tubercle on the inner side of the wall. Males and females the tubercle has a difference in shape and size. This method is recommended to use the seven hours after hatching. The sequence of sex determination by this method:
  • Begin with cleansing clack. On the bird belly gently presses the fingers and remove the stool. If the feces are watery, and you can not delete it all, then wipe rectal opening cotton with an absorbent pellet.
  • Then you need to fix chicken. Take it in hand, expand the chicken upside down and spreading our legs to see the cloaca. Carefully expand the hole and at the same time presses on the abdomen, now carefully consider the hole for the presence of sexual tubercle.
  • As the appearance of the cloaca of a bird helps to know the birder who in his hands? Chickens have a cloaca in a neat knot without any noticeable bulges. A rooster, on the contrary, we can see the genital tubercle. This method of determining the sex of a bird by careless and unprofessional handling leads to infection in the genitals and lead to injuries. Therefore, this study should only be performed by experienced professionals. The accuracy in this method is up to 95%.
  1. Cytogenetic methods. It consists in defining chromosomes of the chicken. If the Z -chromosome many, it is a Cockerel, the presence of a single chromosome suggests that we have before us a chicken.
  2. Molecular genetic methods or by simple DNA. Here the sex of the chick is determined by blood. This is one of the most expensive and time-consuming methods. But allows to distinguish males from females.
Folk methods of determining the sex of a chicken

The most simple and cheap ways in how to determine sex of chicken are, of course, traditional methods, time-tested.

They may be used by even a novice birder, it is only necessary to know some features of the structure and behavior of birds.

  1. Method Wings. To find out the sex of the chick daily brood can be in the shape of the wing and degree of plumage. As you know, chicken feathers appear before the roosters. The growth of the feathers and their features can be seen a day after birth. You need to take the chicken to spread his wings and see the rows of flight feathers of the wings. Males have a wingspan wider than that of the hen, and feathers are lengthened. On the wing the females you can see the feathers of various lengths. According to the signs, we can sort the Chicks to the hens and cockerels with an accuracy of 60-80%. Although the marriage remains quite high.
  2. Method appearance. Usually the cocks grow larger than chickens. This can be seen in the daily age. Body future to have a cock bigger and more high and the head is more circular and in diameter more than the chicken. Legs wider, heavier and larger. But if you weigh the chicken, the males usually 1-2 grams heavier than the chicken. This technique is not very accurate, since it ignores the structure of any particular species.
  3. Color method. It is the most convenient method of recognizing the sex of a chicken. It is to purchase so-called autosexing rocks. That is, rocks in which the color of the males is the first day differs from that of females. So when the offer autosexing breed and you know which colors should be male and female, then you can easily distinguish a cock from a chicken. Coming to the market to buy chickens, it is better to take some time and get acquainted with the description of the proposed breed in the literature or the Internet.

Here are examples of these breeds:

  • Kuchensee Jubilee – wings at roosters this suit in the first days of life brighter than chickens.
  • Adler chicken with bettas and Rhode island and new Hampshire. The males of this breed will be bright, while females are fawn. On the second day of life the chickens are clearly visible dark spots and stripes on the head and in males they are not.
  • Per diem cockerels breed Dark Brahma speckled, and the pullets are visible with sharp outlines on the back and bright brown dots on the head.
  • When crossing breeds Khaysek brown and Loman brown. Males have a yellow-brown color, and female – gold – yellow.
Unusual methods of how to distinguish between a hen and rooster

You can try to determine the sex of Chicks using the advice of grandparents. They are not inferior to scientific methods.

The main thing is to have mindfulness and observation.

  • The technique of turning. It does not give an absolute guarantee, but checked more than one generation. You need to carefully take the chicken legs and gently flip it upside down. The bird dragged the head is chicken. And if he pulls the head resists and looks around, then that’s a rooster. Of course, here much depends on the nature of birds. Females are not always calm, some can fend for themselves.
  • Another option is the reflex way is to take a chicken on the palm, put it on the back so that it was horizontal. If he pulls his head to her stomach, this girl, if not then boy. Accuracy, of course, that only 65%.
  • The second option. Take him by the scruff and watch in what position are the legs. The hen will try to double up, clench your claws. The legs she starts to lift slightly. But the cockerels legs in such a situation, moving will not be. They will hang evenly.
  • Another observation helps in sex determination. To see when the Chicks begin to hatch. The first usually appear chicken, and later hatched cockerels.
  • You can try to scare the population of the young. Hens are grouped and set down. And the males scatter, elongated necks and take a defensive posture. Or at feeding time. The roosters come to the feeder first, and hens waiting for a while for their specific sound will invite “Peter”. But these methods can be applied when the Chicks will be about a month or more.

One-month-old Chicks to discern easier. The Chicks fledge faster, but males are larger in size. The males are already visible comb and beard and legs appear spurs. Another feature of the roosters tail like a triangle, and the chickens it is like a fan.

“The voice” method

It turns out that there is a technique how to determine the sex of a chicken with his voice. Scientists have invented a special bio-acoustic device that can recognize the voice of males and females. This semi-automatic device with a microphone. Attendant flips Chuck on his back and puts the microphone of the device. He captures the sound of the bird and analyzes. If the sound has characteristics that are peculiar to chickens, the display shows “female”. And experienced breeders, say that they can determine the gender of the voice and without the use of instruments. As a rule Chicks make squeaky sounds, and males similar to quack. Of course, it is necessary to have good hearing to understand the sound differences of the birds.

How to determine the sex of a chicken until its eggs from

There is a non-standard method of recognition of the sex of the chick in the egg. There is a sign, if the eggs have a sharp end, some of them will hatch male. But in the egg with a blunt end is female. You can feel the shell, taking the egg with your right hand. To its end was looking up. To touch the shell gently with your finger. Feel the roughness and small bogorotsky, then wait for cock. Absolutely smooth and level the surface of the egg suggests that hatch hen. How true this is unknown to science.

You can still find out the sex of a chick by using candling. This is a special device that can Shine through the egg. Take the egg and Shine it from the sharp end to blunt. Inside you can see the air chamber. If it is centered with respect to the blunt end, it will certainly be a rooster. Well, if the camera is shifted, then hatch a chicken. This method does not have sufficient evidence. And yet, when the egg is a regular oval shape, it is quite difficult to determine where stupid, where the sharp end.

From history there is another experimental method that was used in Soviet times. Scientists have tried to use ultrasound. Picked up the frequency of the sound which attracted females and scare away males. All livestock gathered in a large room. On one wall was a set of speakers and they made an ultrasound. Chickens come closer to the speakers, but the males, on the contrary, retreated to the other side. It remained only to assign them to cells. But whether you have used this method in the Soviet era, is not known.

It is only the most basic and proven methods of establishing the sex of the Chicks. Despite the variety of available techniques to distinguish the Chicks on the floor, absolutely guarantee the accuracy won’t be a single method. Consequently, in practice, it is necessary to use several techniques together for the sake of proper diagnosis floor. Every experienced poultry farmer surely there is some secret ways of how to distinguish a chicken from a rooster. If you are planning to have a large farm from scratch, it is better to consult specialists.

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