How To Determine The Gender Of A Chicken? Chicken Habits

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Cockerel or hen

Recently, I am often asked: how to distinguish chickens by sex at an early age? Is it possible to have more chickens in the brood? It is clear where these questions come from. The poultry farms do not sell poultry, and the buzzing black market always deceives the buyer. You want chickens for the summer, but they give you roosters, which are displayed more. In nature, males are always born more, it is generally wasteful.

It is believed that cockerels hatch from pointed eggs, and chickens from round eggs. This is not true, the shape of the egg is determined only by the structure of the mother-chicken's oviduct. It is still impossible to determine who is who at the stage of laying eggs for incubation. The Japanese have spent $ 1 billion to solve this problem, but have not achieved a practical result. So what, ultrasound is done for pregnant women, too, not at the time of conception, but somewhat later.

In industrial poultry farming, the sexual problem is solved with the help of four linear crosses, while the chickens are bred beige, and the males are white. Where broilers are grown, white ones are left, beige ones are drowned, and where layers are needed, vice versa. By the way, broiler chickens, unnecessary for the poultry farm, are very good on the private backyard, because the first year they rush normally, and in the second, you see, and already a solid carcass has been fed. There are such breeds, called autosex, in which chickens differ in sex at one day old. Classic in this regard is the Italian partridge, cockerels and chickens there can be distinguished by the color and brightness of the stripes on the backs and arrows near the eyes.

I kept Adler silvers, they are also autosex: chickens are born yellow, and cockerels are lemon-colored with a bright black stripe on their heads.

An experienced poultry farmer can disassemble chicks on the floor, even if the breed is not autosexual. So, in my dark gate, the hens always have clear outlines of stripes on the backs and bright brown dots on the head, and the cockerels are blurry. In short, you wanted to have some kind of breed, read the literature before, find out how to distinguish between chickens, come to the Gardener's House, to our club, we will give you a breed standard, everything is described there.

By 21 days of life, most breeds already show external sexual characteristics. In general, in all breeds, chickens fledge faster than males, their tails grow earlier. The rooster first grows and then feathers. Often already large cocks run naked, with feathers only on their wings. At two months of age, males show a crest and beard, "face" turns red, legs become longer, the paw itself is more massive than that of a chicken, then rounded feathers - plaits appear in the tail. Chickens never have braids at all. Chickens have spurs, but only very old ones. A large chicken comb is a sign of an egg-laying breed.

If you catch a rooster on the nest, do not be afraid, with orientation everything is fine, he simply shows the chickens that he has found a safe place for laying. The pugnacious are usually the best cocks. In a good chicken, when feeling between the pubic bones, 3 fingers are placed.

In heavy meat and meat-egg breeds, a large number of cockerels in a brood is not such a problem, but in egg breeds it is unprofitable to raise roosters for meat, feed is now expensive, in our cold climate, energy costs are high, the bird eats a lot in order to normally warm up and fledge.

What can be done to increase the number of chickens in the brood?

Before selecting eggs for incubation, the Americans sharply reduce the protein content in the feed and dip the eggs into a solution containing female sex hormones, although they say that this leads to a rapid degeneration of the herd.

I do it easier. If I need chickens, then I remove all young roosters, in the spring only old three-year-old aksakals are left to walk in pullets, the percentage of fertilized eggs will be lower, but such hardened fathers are good at making daughters. If it is necessary to select a good producer from a large number of applicants, young "stallions" remain to drive the old layers.

People often ask: will chickens lay without a rooster?

There will be. The cock does not affect egg production, on the contrary, but an unfertilized egg is devoid of some of the qualities that a fertilized one possesses.

They are also interested in: is it possible to keep a dwarf rooster with large chickens?

You can, if you are not going to bring out chickens. On the contrary, it is unacceptable.

Can you keep one rooster just for beauty?

It is possible, but is it necessary? It's common knowledge that lonely men don't last long.

How many chickens should there be for one rooster?

It depends on the breed and temperament. To have normal fertilization, there must be four to eight chickens per rooster.

Is it possible to keep roosters and chickens of different breeds?

You can, if you are not going to breed any breed clean. True, 11 days before the selection of eggs for incubation, the bird can be seated by species, and the rest of the time can be kept in one flock.

Who tastes better: rooster or chicken?

Chicken tastes better.

Who eats more?

In childhood - a rooster, in an adult - a chicken. Breeding roosters are even fed separately.

How many years can chickens be kept?

You can keep it until they themselves die, if they are pets for you, and not food. It makes sense to keep chickens for two years, roosters for up to three years. Sometimes old chickens are kept up to four years old, using only as hens.

Who are "kuropekh" and "capon"?

Kuropekh is called a rooster with blurred sexual characteristics, which is a by-product of imbreeding, i.e. closely related crossing. Such a bird must be discarded. This is the same as the dog's dog. The capon is a castrated rooster raised for meat. This method was used before broiler hatching.

What is the difference between a brood hen, a nest and a quail?

The brood hen sits on the eggs, the nest leads the chickens, and the hen is called the chick's mother in general, starting from the moment when she stops getting up from the nest.

What chickens sit on eggs?

All meat breeds and most of the common ones sit down. The best hens are dwarf chickens.

No matter how much they frighten us with exotic diseases, where are we, Russians, going to get away from the earth! And on its own land there should be a house with three windows, a chicken coop, a cockerel should yell for the whole neighborhood, a pussy should bask in the sun, a dog should bark at passers-by, and the owners should dig in the beds. Here it is, a simple Russian dream!