Sexing Kienyeji chicks

Sexing  Kienyeji chicks.

We have been asked how we do sexing on our chicks. There are a number of methods that are used to sex chicks from day old.

• Vent sexing
• Down (chicks feathers) Colour sexing
• Feather Sexing

Some people say that you can tell if an egg will hatch a cockerel (make) or a Pullet (female); pointed for male and more rounded for female. You might as well toss a coin because the guess will only be either be heads or tails. We’ve experimented with the eggs sexing for a long time hatching more 4000 eggs a week, we have now concluded that this method is useless, its just guess work.

Vent sexing

Vent sexing is done by professionals, it was discovered in by the Japanese in the 1920s. Chicks are sexed by spreading open the vent, this procedure makes it possible to view the organs to determine sex based shape. You can find some videos on you tube, you will see why its left to the professionals only!

Down (chicks feathers) Colour sexing

Some breeds are quite easy to sex by looking at their colour. For example if you cross a male Rhode Island Red with a female Light Sussex, the chicks inherit their parents colour; the male takes on their colour (white) while the females looks like their father (brown).

This method is also used in some KALRO (KARI) chicks sexing, where you have a Cuckoo Maran mum with a Rhode Island father; the female chicks will be all black while male will be black with a white dot on top of their heads. But when they are older, say 4 weeks plus, females will be all black with some strips of red feathers on their necks while the males will be back and white, inheriting their mum’s colours.

Feather sexing

At Ziwani Poultry Farm we use the Feather sexing from day old. It’s quite simple if you practice with a few chicks, you should get idea after sexing 10 chicks or so. The female naturally grow their wing feathers faster than the males.

Just spread the wings of the chicks as it’s shown below. Although they are at the same age, the wing on the left is female’s you can see clearly the feathers are longer than one on the right. Also as the Kienyeji chicks grow, say a week to three weeks old, you will notice that the female’s tail feathers are already showing while you can hardly see the male feathers.