# Vent sexing month old chicks?



## Green Mountain Farm (Dec 31, 2019)

Can you vent sex month old chicks? If not, how do you tell? I am trying to sell some chicks but the person who is buying them only wants hens and they are on their way.


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## Sfgwife (Feb 18, 2018)

Green Mountain Farm said:


> Can you vent sex month old chicks? If not, how do you tell? I am trying to sell some chicks but the person who is buying them only wants hens and they are on their way.


Vent sexing is not an easy thing. So the answer is no. You must be taught this a d have the correct instruments. At a month old though you should be able to tell with pretty good accuracy the pullets from cockrels.

And were it me and this person was kinda snotty about only getting pullets.... no sale. I cannot guarantee sex except for autosexing breeds.


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## Green Mountain Farm (Dec 31, 2019)

Sfgwife said:


> Vent sexing is not an easy thing. So the answer is no. You must be taught this a d have the correct instruments. At a month old though you should be able to tell with pretty good accuracy the pullets from cockrels.
> 
> And were it me and this person was kinda snotty about only getting pullets.... no sale. I cannot guarantee sex except for autosexing breeds.


I never said they were snotty, just can't have more than one rooster. 
I don't understand how everyone is against vent sexing unless you have experience, when the only way to get experience is to do it. I have done it before without hurting the chick, I just have a hard time telling the roo from the hen. Any advice?


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## wheel-bear-o (Jul 6, 2020)

The training for learning to vent sex is intense. It is not something that homesteaders/backyard chicken keepers usually do because a) unless you are a major poultry operation you won't be looking at enough chicks to learn to reliably differentiate the minute differences in their sex organs, and b) it is extremely easy to disembowel and kill the chick while vent sexing. Hatcheries can afford to lose the small percentage that die during this process, but homesteaders usually would rather not. Basically, it just isn't worth it. When people say "it takes experience," what they mean is doing literally hundreds of them a day.

That said, it would be hard to do on a four week old. Pretty soon you'll be able to see hackle and saddle feathers and won't need to evert the vent anyway.


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## MellonFriend (Aug 8, 2017)

I don't have any knowledge of vent sexing, but the best way we've been able to tell with our chicks is comb color and size. If you have a bunch of the same breed, it's generally pretty easy to tell which are roos, but maybe that was just our breeds. Here's a link to an article that I found helpful https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/how-to-sex-chickens-5-methods-to-determine-hen-or-rooster/ And another: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-colour-legs-and-feathering-reference.834828/

If they really don't want roosters, is there any way you could offer to take one back if it turned out to be male?


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## IHEARTGOATS (Jun 14, 2016)

Most experts at vent sexing chicks are Japanese. They developed it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/oukoe-uk-jobs-chickens-idAFTRE67U0QY20100831


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