Sexing Baby Chickens

Written by Carole

My hatch date is past due a couple of days so I am assuming we are done for this one. Out of the eight eggs in the incubator one started pipping and did not make it fully out of the egg (not sure what happen to it) and two hatched. They are both Buff Orpingtons; cute and fuzzy.

Buff Orpington Baby Chickens

They are now in a box with heat, food, and water.

One thing I read somewhere, online I’m sure, is a way to sex baby chickens a day or two after birth. According to the instructions you hold the chick just above the wings with its feet dangling:

1. if the baby chicken is moving about and pulls legs up it is likely a rooster

2.if the baby chicken remains calm and hold its legs down it is likely a pullet/hen.

I don’t know if this is true or not but a man at the small animal auction told me he had a success rate of 95% of sexing chickens using this method. If this is so then I have a pullet and a cockerel.

Baby Chicken pullet

Baby chicken cockerel

Now I’m cleaning up the incubator for the next set of eggs I have waiting. I still have some Buff Orpington eggs that I picked up before the rooster died. I realize the longer you wait to incubate the less the success rate but I’m going to give it a try anyway and see if I can get more Buff Orpingtons. I will also be trying to hatch some Black Australorp eggs. Samson and Delilah are so beautiful I can imagine what their little babies will look like.

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16 Responses to “Sexing Baby Chickens”

Barbara
January 18th, 2009 at 6:33 am

Hello, Enjoyed catching up on Fowl Visons. Congratulations on your new babies. I am planning on getting a incubator this spring. Sorry to hear about your BO Rooster in another post. I wish I had attended the poulty show in Lake City. Please keep me posted on any poultry show’s in the future. Oh yeah, very interesting about the sexing of the baby chicks. Could it be so simple?

Barbaras last blog post..Chicken Rescue

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Wendy
January 18th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

I have heard about that method also. I also saw on the T.V. show “How It’s Made” a story on hatcheries and they were sexing chickens by this method….They looked at their feathers on the wings. If the 2 rows of feathers were uneven it was a hen. If the rows were even it is a rooster. I think they might have said it only works for the first couple of days but I can’t remember. But since it was a hatchery I thought they must know what they are doing. I also decided that it would be terrible to be a chick hatched at the hatchery.

Wendys last blog post..I Hope That You Can Help Me

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SimplyForties
January 18th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

Any chance you’ll post a photo of that sexing hold?

SimplyFortiess last blog post..New Experiment in Vermicomposting

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SimplyForties
January 18th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Thanks for the pictures Carole, hard to imagine any chick would just hang there!

SimplyFortiess last blog post..New Experiment in Vermicomposting

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Carole
January 18th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

Wendy, I checked my two babies and the results of the wings were the same outcome as the other method I have listed. So if both methods come up with the same outcome hopefully it is correct–I have a rooster and a hen.

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don
January 19th, 2009 at 12:00 pm

The photos help a lot! I tried it and was doing it way wrong. I am going to go out and try it and then try to mark them somehow.

I hope all of mine are hens!!!

dons last blog post..Too Cold for a Picnic

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Nancy
January 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Now that is one method, I haven’t heard of. Thanks for showing how it’s done. I hope to get an incubator soon, and I need to separate my chickens by breed. That way I’ll have pure breeds. Your chicks are cute!

Nancys last blog post..Winner-My Fruit Roll-Ups Giveaway

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samantha
January 20th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

Here is a link about sexing chickens.

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jh.....hicks.html

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Wendy
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:18 pm

Interesting. Keep us posted…pun intended. I haven’t had any chicks since I saw the show so haven’t been able to try it out.

Wendys last blog post..The Goat Lady

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carol v
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:08 pm

wendy,
the methened of tell the differnted male and female is right it work i have six of the and their is one male out all six so i have 5 females and one male thank you for put a web set like this…. thank you very much my husband tryed to suprese me with the baby chicken but i seen them before easter they was my easter persent i love all six of them

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Becka
May 6th, 2010 at 9:42 pm

omg your chickens are sooo cute! i recently did a project in school that let me keep a baby chicken at my house for 2 weeks and do a lab report on it for my agri-science class. I fell in love with my chick and i miss her soo much!!!

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Barry Peele
June 1st, 2010 at 6:42 pm

you can also tell the sex of a chick by the breast bone a males breast bone will be further down than a females. the males will usually be about an inch to an inch and a half past the start of the legs in chicks around a month old where as the females will generally be about a half inch past the start. not a 100% accurate method but it is very close. if anyone would like to talk more about it my email is ninjaryder_003@yahoo.com. i breed a vatiety of chicks, ducks, and pheasants.

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