Sexing Day-Old Chicks - A Treatise on Sex Detection in Pure and Cross-Breed Chicks

By W. Blount

This book contains a detailed handbook on determining the sex of pure- and cross-bred chicks, with chapters on handing and care, common questions and problems, and more. Written in clear language and containing simple, step-by-step instructions, this profusely-illustrated guide will be of considerable utility to chicken owners and breeders, especially those who are new to the field. Contents Include: “foreword", "Introduction", "The Sexual Structure of Chicks", "Sex Determination at Birth", "Percentage Types of Genital Eminences", "Are the Chicks Harmed?", and "Useful Aids to Learning”. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on poultry farming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Dec 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781447482772

Book preview

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

POULTRYMEN have always looked forward to the time when two of their problems concerning sex in poultry would be solved. The first concerns the differentiation of the sex of the developing chick in the egg, but unfortunately this subject is one about which we still know nothing of practical value. The second, that of the determination of sex at birth, is, however, now an accomplished fact, and one which can be utilised practically by poultrykeepers themselves without resource to laboratories, the microscope, or other such specialised apparatus.

The solution of the problem of sexing baby chicks is due solely to the work of certain Japanese veterinary and agricultural professors. After studying the subject intensively they found, following several years’ patient research, that it is possible to distinguish day-old pullets from cockerels. Four names are outstanding in this respect:—Masui, Hashimoto, Kojima and Sakakijama. The subject is now taught so extensively in Japan that there are numerous other experts, though none apparently played so important a part in its early history as did the four mentioned.

The Earliest Announcement

The first intimation that chick-sexing was being studied scientifically by the Japanese came when Masui—Professor of Veterinary Anatomy in the University of Tokyo—presented, at the Third World’s Poultry Congress, a paper entitled "The Rudimentary Copulatory Organ of the Male Domestic Fowl with Reference to the Differences of the Sexes of Chickens". At that time (1927) little practical interest was taken in this valuable contribution, but six years later there appeared the first book to be published in English on sex determination.*

About the same time (1933) the method was given practical application in Great Britain by Japanese experts attached to the Kibworth Hatchery, and since then other hatcheries have utilised the services of similarly qualified experts.

The writer, and his laboratory assistants, after studying the subject with care and applying it practically, find that with a few slight modifications there is no reason why it should not be utilised by poultrykeepers in this country. In fact there appears every reason to expect that within the next year or so it will be taught in our agricultural and poultry colleges and institutions as a routine subject.

In future chick-sexing will be carried out by two distinct classes of people:—(1) Japanese or other experts who can sex chicks at a rate far in excess of the ordinary person, and (2) poultrykeepers who sex their own chicks at a rate varying from 60–200 per hour. The former class (expert) will presumably be attached to hatcheries or other places where thousands of chicks require sexing daily or weekly. It is highly probable that these experts for some little time will be Japanese, since very few Englishmen will have the opportunity of practising the subject intensively for weeks on end, such as is necessary to become sufficiently proficient to sex chicks at a fast rate.

It is essential to realise that there are two very important factors to be considered: accuracy and