AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Can anyone explain an easy way to sex day old chickens or if not day old when is it easy to sex them.

It really depends on the breed, some you can sex day olds, others you can't until they start to crow

Some local Ag/Hort clubs run chicken sexing courses.

well answered PP

bergy = what breed are you talking about?

they are Isa Browns.I've tipped them up looked at their bits & I have no idea of where to find their sexual organs.

Chook sex organs are all on the inside
Sexing chicks is referred to as ‘vent sexing’ as you have to – well – vent sex them (not having a go I just couldn't think of how to say it any better )

Anyone know if Isas are sex linked for colour at hatching? (obviously I have no idea as I have never owned them)

we've only ever had 1 isa brown, but with all the chicks we've bred, the girls tend to feather up quicker than the boys.
boys combs and wattles tend to color up and develop quicker than the girls.
if you only have a couple of chicks and they are the same sex you will have trouble working all this out.
good luck and i hope they lay for you.

Origin – you say you have only ever had one Isa Brown = what was she mated to?

I have been told by one commercial breeder that their males (cockerels) hatch White while the females (pullets) hatch orangey brown

I am contacting other commerical breeders to ask them as well = different lines of this hybrid breed

Hi,
Isa's are a sex linked breed. Two of my daughters have hatched chickens from a hatchery in there school classrooms. I ahve also hatched some at home. Basically the sexing is based in the gold linked principle. The girls hatch colour is reds is, backs are red. The bots hatch more whitish some colour, but their backs are almost white(yellow).
If you cross a RIR with a White Wyandotte, the Girls are red, the boys white. another cross is with barred breeds, the males are barred the girls not. If you cross a RIR and Plymouth rock (dark barred). The gilrs are black including legs, the boys are greyish with the a white dot on their heads (like a pure Rock). I have also see in some cross bred bantams where the males had a columbian colouring (White dominate), the females were every coulur combination you can pick. When any of the chickens hatched were withish in colour they were always males, the pullets we always coloured and very rearly was there a coloured male.

If you search Autosexing (obviously for Poultry) e.g. Legbars ect, there is a thread some where on APF that details with the genetics in far more details.

Rhode Red

Soozorps, the only roo that got to her was a partridge wyndotte called 'randy'
we only hatched one egg from her as was for eating eggs not breeding eggs.
we got a gold colored hen. a good layer and a good broody.

something we have used as sexing young birds is length of wing feathers.
where the primary wing feathers and the secondary wing feathers are even in length,
this indicates a roo.
if the primary are longer then its a hen
even when they are a couple of days old you can see this feather difference.