Sexing Chickens/Poultry, Cockerels etc ...

How do you sex a chicken?
One method is vent sexing as day old chicks…..this is a very specialised area of work that requires training. However within some breeds or various crosses it is possible to sex identify early on through, colouring, marking, wing feathering.

Should I learn how to do this?
You may feel you want to at a later stage, if you go on to breeding a range of poultry.

Is there any other difference between the rare breed and the hybrid hen?
Well that is one difference, even if you are buying from a reliable source a very young hybrid chick or pullet you can be assured you are buying “hens” and not “males”. Some pure breeds are difficult to sex until they are older.

Do all Specialised Breeders sex chicks at an early age?
Some may do to eliminate male chicks, some may allow them to grow on and use them for the table some may hope to give them away if they have too many.

What do you do?
At this time and up until now we have never dispatched (killed) unwanted birds, unless they were hurt or in pain, (this includes very old hens or cockerels)  Cockerels we have kept, or  we managed to give away free to good homes.

Incubating and hatching your rare/traditional birds, did you dispatch the male chicks?
No we let them all live. When there were too many males and we could not give them away, we stopped totally hatching and breeding for a whole year (like last year) and sold hatching eggs only..

What is the result of too many cockerels?
Two things really…In-fighting between too many males….and suffering hens.

And one feisty fertile cockerel and five amorous hens?
Heaven I suppose.

And loads of cockerels and very old (way past their laying days) old grannie hens?
Massive feed bills and sleepless nights!!.....worrying how to pay them….and all the excess cockerels in unison and in great numbers reminding you of the situation around 3.30 in the morning!!

Do laying hens need a cockerel to lay eggs?
No, not to lay eggs, only if you wish to the eggs to be fertile with the intention of breeding/hatching etc.

So the hens don’t need a cockerel?
In a word “NO”…..and if you have “near neighbour”, then it is a “definite no”.

.....link to....... FAQ....costs involved.