There’s a lot of mythology around sexing chickens. While some chicks can be accurately sexed after hatching by the color of their down (in some breeds males look distinctly different from females) or the length of their wings, in most breeds it’s next to impossible to tell. That hasn’t stopped people from trying. One old method is to use the shape of an egg: an egg with a cockerel (a young rooster) will be shaped like a football and an egg with a pullet (a young hen) will be rounded, so the wisdom goes. In another, people are told to hang a needle or a ring above the chick—if it in a circle, the chick is a female, if it goes back and forth it’s a male. (In case you were wondering, none of these work.) In one thread of old wives’ tales around chicken sexing, one woman posted that if you pick the chick up, females will pull their legs into their bodies while males hold them straight down. “My experience is that it’s right about 50% of the time,” she ended. I couldn’t tell if she meant this to be a joke or not. It’s a good one either way.
The Marvelous Mr. Marple
The Marvelous Mr. Marple
The Marvelous Mr. Marple
There’s a lot of mythology around sexing chickens. While some chicks can be accurately sexed after hatching by the color of their down (in some breeds males look distinctly different from females) or the length of their wings, in most breeds it’s next to impossible to tell. That hasn’t stopped people from trying. One old method is to use the shape of an egg: an egg with a cockerel (a young rooster) will be shaped like a football and an egg with a pullet (a young hen) will be rounded, so the wisdom goes. In another, people are told to hang a needle or a ring above the chick—if it in a circle, the chick is a female, if it goes back and forth it’s a male. (In case you were wondering, none of these work.) In one thread of old wives’ tales around chicken sexing, one woman posted that if you pick the chick up, females will pull their legs into their bodies while males hold them straight down. “My experience is that it’s right about 50% of the time,” she ended. I couldn’t tell if she meant this to be a joke or not. It’s a good one either way.