how to sex silkies – VJP Poultry

How to Perform a DNA test on your Silkie Chick and Determine its Sex.

June 25, 2018April 21, 2020 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

20180613_103403-1 Silkie chicks are known to be very difficult to sex at a young age. An Avian DNA sex test is a scientific way to determine the gender of your baby chick before you become too emotionally attached to it knowing that if it is a rooster you will not be able to keep it depending on where you live.

Many people live in cities and towns with ordinances that prohibit roosters. Their crowing makes them unpopular with city officials. It would be wonderful to know the sex of your silkie chicks within the first week of life. You could, of course, wait until it crows or lays an egg but with silkie chicks that can take many months.

Many people try and sex silkie chicks based on feather sexing, appearance or behavior. None of these methods are always reliable. Feather sexing is something genetically bred into a breed of chicken. It has to do with the length of wing feathers. Not all chicken breeds can be feather sexed. However, some believe that early feathering of the wings and tail are an indication of a female. Because silkie’s feathers are fluffy and not hooked together, it makes this kind of feather sexing especially difficult.

Luckily, determining the sex of your chick through DNA sexing is highly accurate. They claim that the reliability of the laboratory protocol is 99.9%. Many companies offer this type of DNA test and a quick online search can provide you with some reputable companies.

The first company I looked at was PollyGene through Amazon. They specialize in parrots and other home birds that can be very difficult to sex. Many of these birds are very expensive so it makes sense to spend the money in order to find out the gender. I did not see chickens listed so I wrote a question to them about whether or not they could sex baby chicks. The answer that came back was no, which kind of surprised me. I went on to look at some other companies. IQ Bird Testing specifically states that they do silkie chick sexing. They charge $11.99 per bird and you get the results back in about a week and a half. I also had a customer who tested five newborn silkie chicks that she had purchased from us and had very good things to say about the IQ Bird Testing company.

DNA bird gender determination can be performed with blood samples, feather samples and eggshell samples. Laboratory analysis will test for the Z chromosome or W chromosome in birds to determine their sex. Males will have only Z chromosomes and females will have ZW chromosome pairs. It is the females, not the males who determine the sex of the embryo.

The collection of samples is very easy to do. After placing an order with a company online, they will send you a downloadable and printable Sample Form. Print out the form as you will need it when you are collecting samples. An incorrect collection of samples may cause delay in your bird’s results or even affect the outcome due to sample DNA cross- contamination. Always be very careful in following directions exactly.

Before beginning blood collection, wash your hands thoroughly. Use a pair of clean nail clippers sanitized with alcohol. Clip the tip of any toe nail approximately 2/3 of the distance from the root of the nail. Blood will flow from the nail. Place the circle of the submission form underneath it until it absorbs a few drops. Do not touch the blood at any time as this can contaminate your sample. Allow the blood to dry completely before folding the submission form. Check that your bird is not bleeding anymore and apply an anticoagulant onto the area. The blood sample has a higher chance of finding good quality DNA than feathers or eggshell.

For feather collecting, you want to move aside the surface feathers from the lower chest area and find the smaller ones that are underneath. Pluck at least five of these smaller feathers making sure that they come with a visible quill. You could use tweezers to do the plucking. If the quill comes with some blood, allow the feathers to air dry for one hour. Never touch the quills of the feathers with your hands. Never pluck the wings. Any feathers that are molted or shed naturally can not be used for DNA testing. Tape the feathers onto the submission form and make sure the tape does not reach the quills.

The last way is to use eggshells. After the chick has hatched from the egg, place the shell sideways and allow the inner membrane to dry a minimum of 24 hours. Do not touch the inside of the eggshell. Make sure that you have the right eggshell. Use the one the chick actually hatched from. Once it dries, place the entire eggshell into a plastic bag. Pierce the bag with a needle several times to allow air flow through the bag.

Lastly, mail your form with the sample collections to the company. They will ask you the species name which in the case of chickens would be Gallus Gallus. If you are doing several different birds you will need a way to identify each bird. Colored rubber bands that are quite small work well with tiny chicks. Place a different color on the leg of each chick and then use that color for identification on your form.

In a week or so the company will send its results back to you. There will be a separate certificate for each bird tested. They will let you know if it is male or female. Of the five birds that my customer tested, three came back male and two came back female. Since the male/female ratio for chickens is 50/50 this is pretty typical. The picture at the top shows the three chicks that came back as male. Would you be able to tell that just by looking at them? I recommend DNA testing for people that can’t stand the heart break of parting with one of their pets. If you do the testing early, it is worth the cost in the long run.

For tips and tricks for raising outstanding silkies check out our Chicken Learning Center at VJPPoultry.com . VJP Poultry is an NPIP and state inspected hatchery located 30 miles north of St. Paul. We hatch out silkies all year long so we always have stock available. Like us on Facebook to get weekly updates on what we currently have for sale.

Victoria J. Peterson

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Why it is so Difficult to Sex Silkie Juvenile Chicks?

April 18, 2018December 1, 2018 by vjppoultry, posted in New Silkies

20180409_083330-1 Silkies are among the hardest breed of chickens to sex at a young age. The old adage that you can’t tell them apart until they crow or lay an egg has a lot of truth in it. I have found that certain weeks of age are easier than others for telling which are boys and which are girls.

Newborns that are hatched together out of the same color pen can be judged on size. Males tend to be larger and more curious than the females. This only works with same color chicks. If you want more information about sexing younger silkies, check out “sexing young silkie chicks.

At around three weeks, males will begin to be more aggressive and will play fight with other males in the same pen. Beware – females can do this also. The silkie comb on males may begin to show some signs of development from three weeks onward. A upside down “U” at the top part of the comb may be the beginning of a wider developing comb and signal a male. Females tend to have a more narrow upside down “V” at the top of their combs.

Males will continue to develop their combs which will become wider and may get bumpy. After twelve weeks the female comb begins to get wider as well and males and females will begin to look similar again.

AT VJP Poultry we have a rooster return policy. I had a customer return a rooster for rehoming last week that was around four months old. I asked him why he thought it was a rooster at that young age and he said that it was because it had a mean disposition. I put my hand down next to it and it immediately pecked it – hard!

After the customer left, I began looking more closely at the bird. It was a pet quality partridge or buff silkie. The color was wrong for the show ring. The more I looked at it, the more I just couldn’t get a handle on whether I thought it was a boy or a girl.

The first thing I did was to trim around the eyes. It was unable to see and this could have been part of the reason that it pecked so hard at my hand. I took a look at the comb and wattles. The comb was wider than younger females but at four months female silkie’s combs begin to grow. I looked for wattles. At four months they should be showing on a male. I begin to see them as young as two months old as small red dots. This bird had just the slightest suggestion of the outline of a wattle. Again, females will develop very small wattles as they grow towards maturity.

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The crest of this bird had a definite pom pom shape. Because I didn’t see this bird when it was younger, I don’t know if it went through any Elvis type crest that some males have beginning at two months. I looked at the back of the head to check for “streamer” development. Nothing so far, but there are new feathers coming in right at the spot that could later develop into streamers.

Next I looked at the hackle feathers on the neck. Males should have longer hackle feathers than the females at this point. I did not have another to compare it with but they looked shorter and more female to me.

The wings on the bird looked long, especially the primaries. They also seem to be hard or stiff – not shreddy. Just because they seem large, it makes me think male. Females have shorter primary feathers.

The tail is wide and stands up straight. I also think that this is a male characteristic. Females often have their tail down in a more submissive position.

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This silkie has large feet and massive foot feathering. This is another sign of a male. Females foot feathering are more in proportion to the rest of its body. Foot feathering depends on breeding but males will have larger feet.

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The stance of this bird is very upright. Boys stand up taller than girls as a rule and there is more room between the tail and the bottom of the feet.

Behavior is hard to tell since I didn’t see how it developed. It seems very docile once its eye feathers were trimmed. It is currently alone so I can’t see how it interacts with others. Males would be more assertive. If you placed it with another male, they may begin to fight even at this young age.

Males at four months are often crowing especially first thing in the morning. This bird only made soft clucking sounds like a hen would make. It did not struggle when you picked it up and did not make grunting sounds like a male may make.

So let’s look at the score card:

Comb- Female Wattles- female

crest – female hackle feathers – female

wings – male tail – male

feet – male stance – male

behavior- either noises – female

If I was pressed I would have to go with male, but it certainly could go the other direction.

This article is to show how hard it is to determine the sex of a young silkie. Mistakes can be made. Breeders and judges alike are not always certain when sexing silkies. I do think that it is much easier to sex them if you watch how they grow and develop. Taking a four month old juvenile silkie and trying to sex it in isolation is much more difficult. Hopefully, a crow will come sooner or later – or maybe an egg.

Victoria J. Peterson

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