After our experience with “straight run” chicks, we decided to buy some replacements from a local farm that raises chickens. The lady at Circle B Farm in Buchanan, Georgia, said she has a 90% success rate when she sexes chicks. She does this by holding them by the skin on their back, like a mother cat picks up her kittens. I have also heard that you can put two fingers on each side of their neck and let them hang for a few seconds. If they struggle to get away, they are most likely male. If they are calm while hanging, they are most likely female. It will be interesting to see how many cockerels we get using her sexing method.
She offered an incredible variety of chicks, so we bought 11 new babies to add to our small flock…
2 Barred Rock
2 Black Orpingtons
3 Frizzles
2 Rhode Island Reds
2 Silkies
Aren’t they cute? Hopefully all of them are females this time.
Aquaponic Family 
Super cute! And good luck..
Fantastic! You should have a better rate this time!
I hope you are right this time and get all females. We are raising 3 chicks the natural way, under mother hen and we don’t know if they are hens or cocks. someone told us the cockerels develop their tail feathers earlier than hens but I’m not sure if this is a failproof way of telling. Only time will tell. Ours are 3 weeks old now.
I so want to do this
Just hope that you don’t end up with a Rhode Island Red boy! We did and he was HUGE. The poor fellow was quiet and quite nice and I took a shine to him but he ended up in the freezer for being so massive that he was really hurting our girls. One of our bantams, Bob, has some sort of chicken sexiness that we can’t fathom as every rooster wants her! The poor little girl got plucked and scratched and ended up almost bald…so “Big Red” is now “Red Rooster” (a local chicken restaurant)…at least you can get rid of them on Craig’s list as they are all breeds that someone out there would want to carry on 🙂
Welcome to the family, little baby chicks! Looking forward to hearing about their progress…..
They are so cute! Looking forward to watching them grow!
You have been nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award. I enjoy keeping up with your adventures! http://southernmoonbackporch.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/one-lovely-blog-award/
Very cute! I missed having baby chicks this year, but we’re planning for some next spring. Crossing my fingers that they’ll all be girls!
We should have been rooster farmers, because about 80% of our chicks were males. I hope you have better luck 🙂
I hope everything is going well and your chicks are maturing nicely.
Good luck! My wife and I got baby chicks last year for the first time and it was a learning (and good) experience!
We have 15 chickens but have lost quite a few to raccoons. Others just disappeared during the day. Maybe a hawk got them, I’m not sure. We either ate or gave away all of our roosters.
Old wives tale. I’d be interested I results, too. I think feather sexing would be more reliable……
What kind of frizzle? Any breed can have the frizzle feathering. I was hoping one of my cochin bantams was frizzled, but her feathers straightened out as she got older. I love them! Maybe you’ll be really lucky and have a sizzle!
I’m not sure. We were just told that it was a frizzle. My loves the frizzles, probably because they don’t look real chickens.
…look like real chickens. 🙂