When I have a little brooder full of chicks, I love to know whether I have a little cockerel or pullet. It isn’t an easy task to determine the sex of chickens.
In fact, I have spent many years trying to find the best way to determine who is who in my young flocks.
It is advantageous to know which sex my peeps are if I decide to sell them, sort, or introduce them to my flock.
If I am going to sell, typically, a pullet will go for a few more dollars than a rooster, so rather than selling straight run, I like to tell new owners what they are getting.
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Buying straight run means purchasing a chicken without knowing its sex, male or female, rooster or hen.
I have noticed that when purchasing a straight run, you will most likely get a rooster, as the sexting process will gather the most pullets into the pullets pile where the straight run gets the rest.
Keep that in mind when you are sure you don’t want to deal with many roosters fighting for the pecking order crown!
Sometimes, as mentioned, I like to know early on to envision what my future flock will consist of.
There is nothing worse than having a brood of babes and imagining dozens of fresh eggs only to hear a bunch of teenage crows coming from the coop in a few months.
But if you do end up with the preferred ratio and you do end up with freshly laid eggs, then we recommend adding a chicken treat to supplement more nutrients to their diet.
If you want to increase your egg production even further, and improve the strength of the eggshells, and help your hens through the molting process, here are some treats that we recommend:
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When I got started in the chicken business, I bought one Rooster and a friend gave me a (same breed) Hen. She went broody on 13 eggs and hatched 11. Would you like to guess the male/female ratio I ended up with? LOL 8/3 ~ just 3 little girls! That’s my luck!!
Your off a solid start with 11 hatches, is this her first brooding/hatching cycle?
Claire
i meant my mom hatched some chicks 13 hatched 2 eggs did not at least not now 2 days later both had hatched and i got a male/female ratio of 1/13 just one Rooster LOL
Had 14 eggs hatch.
10 of them were male. So you are not alone!
I have to many hens
I have 4, 3-day old chicks in the brooder right now. One of them rushes up to my hand when I lower it in there, and has a more ‘upright’ posture than the others. My intuition said, I’ll bet that one’s a rooster! And your article just confirmed my hunch, I believe. Thank You! Gee, wouldn’t it be terrific if the other 3 were pullets?? (Crossing fingers 🙂 Great article.
Very few breeds or crossings of breeds can be wing sexed. That method is part truth and part myth. One has to know ahead of time if their breed is a fast or slow feathering type, and which type to cross together to get the type of wing feather growth that allows for sexing. There will be mostly very disappointed people out there, or culling he wrong sex of chicks if they try use that method.
I think you’re dead right on that point.
My life has been miserable for the past 3-4 weeks not knowing which ones are male and which ones are female.
I crossed a Rhode Island red rooster with 6 ISA brown hens, incubated the eggs with 36 chicks hatching.
At first I was “over the moon” so to speak because I could wing sex them and know which is which.
So I pasture raised the the “cockerels” for culling and separated the “pullets” for egg production.
I am in week 10 now and am no closer to identifying the pullets from the cockerels. The so called “cockerels” have no comb-wattle formation and the so called “pullets” share many traits of a rooster-to-be.
I live in a suburban setting and once the boys start crowing from all corners of the yard I’m up ship creek.
If ANYONE could help me with this matter it would be genuinely appreciated
many thanks in advance
Yunus
yunusemre404@gmail.com
Crow collars work well until they’re a year old. Maybe collar them all at 3 months just to be safe & go from there. I keep a collared roo & I live in the city. Also, don’t buy collars, they’re just a piece of 2 sided Velcro with a V cut down the middle to creat straps. $10 for the roll or up to $30 ea for ready made.
Vent check is 100%, google to see how
I have a hen brooding. She had 2 chicks yesterday and today they’re no where in sight! And I found her in another nest that has 2 chicks in it along with the mother hen. Will hens eat their chicks?
Yes this can happen. If she is an egg eater she will find a way to eat the others’ eggs. It could be helpful to put her away from the others. If she is sitting in other hens nests then you may need to create another nesting box.
Claire
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Claire
I have nine chicks that I hatched – 5 black crossbred (barren red and some other black chicken), 4 week old Barren Red chicks,can someone find an easy way to sex the Barren Reds. The wing sexing thing didn’t work because I didn’t do it soon enough, the thing about the base of the come didn’t work because their fluf is almost the same as their skin. I haven’t tried vent sexing, I haven’t learned to do that yet but I heared it’s the most acurate way to tell whick is which. I need help please!!!
I just found out on how to do it and only one rooster out of four.
So what did you do?
I’ve got a 16 week old Brown leghorn. I’m getting different feedback if it’s a hen or roo. It has a beautiful comb & waddles. I don’t see spurs. All along we thought we had a hen but the difference in the comb compared to the comb on the white leghorm (same age) is completely different. Any other ways I can tell if we have a roo? Help
Really appreciated this article! Thanks!
I have eggs in the incubator now . They are on their 10 th day now . I been wanting to be able to sex my chicks so I would know what to expect. I will be trying these methods to see how well they work. the vent method seems to be the best , but it may take a while to get good at doing it that way. I’ll give it a try in about another 10 to 12 days and see how it goes.
Excited to hear about your results!
Claire
I read somewhere that if the eggs are cooled somewhat for a certain period of time during the first few days of incubation, that will sway the sexes of the chicks toward female. I don’t remember the specifics but have you ever heard of anything along these lines ? I also read that this works because the sex of the egg has not been determined at the time the egg is laid. The sex correlates more with the temperature variants during incubation. This might make for some interesting reading !
My hen just hatched out 7 chicks which are not hers and they are a mix w an Amaracauna as the Dad. I have no idea what their genders are but I’m looking forward to finding out!
I’m old school going back now about 100 years. I’m 70
My mother long gone showed how to sex the eggs before trying to incubate or even in the hens nest.
The more pointy the egg was, it was sure to be a rooster. Pullets were in the more rounded egg. Its worked for us, 95% of the time.
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By the way- wing/feather sexing only works on certain breeds/crosses. Unless you’re an experienced vent sexer, telling females from males can be nearly impossible until they’re fully feathered. Once your chickens are fully feathered, all you need to do it look at the saddles (tail feathers) and hackles (neck feathers). On cockerels, these feathers will be pointed, and on hens, they will be rounded. Like anything, there are some exceptions, but this is generally the easiest way to tell. Some people (I used to) make the mistake of thinking that unless a bird has sweeping, iridescent tail feathers and crows, it’s a hen. Some roos are remarkably good at looking like hens, with similar feather coloring and combs/wattles, and roos often won’t crow if there is a more dominant rooster in the flock. Just my two cents 🙂
I read somewhere that if the eggs are cooled somewhat for a certain period of time during the first few days of incubation, that will sway the sexes of the chicks toward female. I don’t remember the specifics but have you ever heard of anything along these lines ? I also read that this works because the sex of the egg has not been determined at the time the egg is laid. The sex correlates more with the temperature variants during incubation. This might make for some interesting reading !
Re: hens crowing, I have a hen who’s a little older than two years and she started crowing last week. She does it every morning now, loud and clear as a rooster. I have no idea what changed, but… There you have it.