Sexing Chickens - Separating the Pullets from the Cockerels

Sexing chickens with any certainty is hard to do (unless you have sex link breeds). 'Seperating the Pullets from the Cockerels' was originally in the April 2008 issue of the Keeping Chickens Newsletter - a free online poultry magazine available at http://www.keepingchickensnewsletter.com

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• chickens
• chicks
• pullets
• cockerels
• poultry
• magazine
• ezine
• newspaper
• newsletter
• sexing

[stanbrit]

hi great vid! needed sum advice, i have 3month old pullets one hen and a cock, i have introduced 1month old pullets recently but the cock keeps attacking the new arrivals even drawing blood at time! :( can u help me how to get them more integrated? look forward to your reply, thanx!

[selfsufficientlife]

There is no sure-fire way (that I know of) for guaranteed harmony. There was a bit on mixing flocks in the July issue pages 11-15 (two slightly different methods, the second of which did also have a problem with attacks). A little bit of squabbling for pecking order is fairly normal, but the bleeding on it's own is now likely to attract pecking unfortunately so the new pullets would probably be better off seperated if possible.

[selfsufficientlife]

Mixing flocks usually works best when they are of a similar size. If they can be seperated but able to see / hear each other for a few days / weeks then that can also help the two flocks get used to each other. When it is time to integrate them then putting the new ones on the perches at night seems to work quite well so that they all wake up together. It is not an exact science though, and I am sure there must be several ways of going about it. Good luck.

[Shareallicu3]

lol I spotted the rooster from the first picture, but I've had chickens my whole life. :)