Sex Chickens for a Living and Other Fowl Things I Never Wanted to Know

When the boy band, Color Me Badd, sang "I Wanna Sex You Up", I have a strong feeling that the boys weren't singing about sexing chickens. In the poultry industry, sexing chickens is a not only a common occurance, it is a necessity to the business.

Simply defined, a chicken sexer is someone who identifies the sex of hatchling chicks. Yes, there is an actual job where you decide if a chicken is a boy (rooster) or a girl (hen). Now, why would someone need to do this?

The poultry industry has different feeding programs that suit the different needs for chickens. In the egg business, roosters (males) are not wanted and are typically culled (killed) to lower feeding costs. In the meat industry, the separation of male and female chicks is needed based on the need of the company. A chicken sexer will distinguish the boys from the girls and make sure the hatchling chicks are sent to the proper nourishment program that feeds their destiny.

However, the gender of a chicken cannot be visually identified until a chick is about 4-6 weeks old. This leads us to the next obvious question -

"How exactly does one sex a chicken?"

One can not identify a newly-hatched chicken by simply looking at them. However, some poultry companies breed their chickens in such a hi-tech manner that there are visual differences to the chicks that can be identified easily. These differences are usually in the feathers on the newly-hatched chicks making gender identification much easier and less messy.