Feather sexing chicks?

I was wondering if someone could explain this to all of us and what are the breeds that work.
Pictures would be wonderful and helpful.

On female chicks the primary feathers on the wing grow much faster. So at say three days old, hold their little wing out and on a female the primarys will be noticebly longer and on a male the feathers will all be the same length.

Pfarms has great pictures maybe she can post the female pic and a male pic.




Here is a list of breeds:

Brahma
Cochin
Langshan
Dorking
Cornish
Sussex
Orpington
Australorp
RIR
New Hampshire
Barred Rock
Wyandotte
Delaware
Jersey Giant

Thanks Amy, I will give it another try this year, maybe I was doing it on breeds that aren't listed!!

Here is a link that has pictures, it should help. Click the > arrow to go to the next page http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/reprod/ReproTech/Feathersex/index.htm

Thank you Prairie chick, that is great info.

Great link Prairie Chick!

Has any one seen a regular growth pattern in new born chicks that they follow through to an age that you can verify accuracy of sex?

I tried wing feather sexing my latest batch of chicks at one, two and three days old as described by http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/reprod/ReproTech/Feathersex/sld001.htm
(The last bunch I did not sex and had 75% cockerels.)

As they are growing I notice two I marked as cockerels are slower developing the wing and tail feathers at the ten day stage.


The ones I believe are pullets have fast developing wings (noticeably larger than the cockerels) and they have tail feathers developing while the cockerels have none yet.


Has this been noticed by others? I can't afford to raise a large % of cockerels, culling them when the hackle feathers are developing is harder than doing it at ten days.
I plan to raise this batch to verify if I am correct but it will be a few months before the neck and saddle feathers develop.


If this proves accurate for my birds it will save in space and feed required.

Feather-sexing works for some pure breeds; for some specific hybrids (see bottom of this post) it also works. However if we're talking about whatever happened to hatch from a mixed flock, you can't really predict sex from feathering speed.

Here's what I posted on the subject on that "other" forum. . .
................
Feathering speed is governed by a sex-linked gene, K=slow, and k+ (wildtype) = fast. (two other, even slower, variants exist. I won't go into them right now).

Breeds that have the K allele (and since we're talking breeds, not hybrids, they ONLY have the K allele) will feather slowly, in general. Becasue it's sex-linked, males have two copies (K/K) and females only one (K/-). Because of the dosage effect, males (with two doses) will feather slower than females.

Breeds that have the K allele, so should be feather sexable, are:
Brahma
Cochin
Langshan
Dorking
Cornish
Sussex
Orpington
Australorp
RIR
New Hampshire
Barred Rock
Wyandotte
Delaware
Jersey Giant

Breeds that have the k+ allele, so won't be feather sexable:
Leghorn
Minorca
Andalusian
Ancona
Buff Catalana
Brabanter
Campine

It gets even more interesting with hybrids. If you cross a female from the slow-feathering list (K allele, so K/-) with a male from the fast feathering list (k+ allele, so k+/k+), all the cockerels (K/k+) will feather slowly, and the pullets (k+/-) will feather REALLY fast.

I have delved quite deeply into this. I can speak to cochins, gold laced wyandottes and brahmas. The females feather out faster, for sure.

The orpington is on the list for feather sexing and should, according to how the fast and slow feathering genes work on some breeds (as on the list), be feather sexed by the females' feathers (primary flight feathers) growing faster than the males.

I can and will attest that this does not work with the orpingtons. I have buff orpingtons and there was a critical error with this. Thankin' my lucky stars I did not cull any chicks, I grew them all out to an age where gender was ascertained by comb and wattle development, which is about 6 weeks for certainty.

I had 10 buff orpington chicks, only two of the chicks had very slow feathering in these particular feathers, the others had very fast wing feather growth. I thought for sure that I had 2 cockerels and 8 pullets and was pleased.

As it turns out, there were 4 pullets and 6 cockerels. My experience now with the orpington, is that wing feather sexing DOES NOT WORK. Period.

Buckeyes are not on that list that is posted here. Trust me, you cannot ascertain gender on that breed until about 8 weeks old, then it is the comb that is the noticeable difference. What I thought were pullets with this breed, before I discovered the wing feather sexing at a very young age did not work, turned out to be cockerels and vice versa. BUT.....I do know it works 100% on cochins and brahmas. But then who knows, maybe something will occur where I will have egg on my face and have to take back that statement, smiling. But absolutely, the gold laced wyandotte, brahma and cochin have held true to the wing feather sexing. Good luck!! Have a wonderful and great day, CynthiaM.

Back in April? Really? How did I miss that? LOL! Yes, I do have photos. I can tell you what each chick turned out to be also. They are the Jersey Giants I hatched out from you chickiesmom. Sorry I didnt see this MONTHS ago.


This one is big blue, my blue roo that my four yr old carries around!



This one was a pullet.



This one is a very large splash roo!

I kept what I expected to be 3 cockerels and 5 pullets, what I got was 5 pullets and 3 cockerels.
However, I was wrong.

The two in the center I sexed incorrectly, the one with the black leg band (2nd from the left) was supposed to be a cockerel, she is my nicest pullet. While the 3rd from left with no leg band was thought to be a pullet, he is my fastest growing cockerel.


My three cockerels, the center one was incorrectly sexed at a day old. Now who do I keep for breeding? The 2 on the outside are wider across the breast and heavier than the center one.
I will decide that when they get about 20 weeks.

So did I get a 75% accuracy, 6 (4 pullets, 2 cockerels)correct out of 8, or a 66% accuracy 2 (cockerels only) correct out of 3.
Does it really matter, no. What I culled were the birds that did not meet the criteria for keeping. Was it easier culling what I thought were cockerels, no. It is just easier to do as day olds than feeding and getting attached to them for 6 weeks.

Will I do it again, probably until I have space to raise everyone to 20 weeks.

I wonder if adding genetics from a cochin or RIR might improve my accuracy? (I don't really want RIR aggression or cochin feathered legs so my answer should be no.)

Thanks for the input.

This list, ipf, should be amended. Orpingtons cannot be accurately wing feather sexed at a young age. Been there, done that. Have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.