How to Get Sexed Silkies??

[MamaWolf4]

I really want to add a couple of silkies to my little chick group. However, I live in suburbia and cannot have any roosters. I have seen that some online hatcheries sell sexed silkies but have noticed that no one local does (places like Tractor Supply). How/why is it that online hatcheries can sex them but a lot of hatcheries don't? And the price for the online sexed silkies isn't horrible - it's the shipping price that makes them so expensive.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Most of the hatcheries we use (like the hatcheries TSC gets theirs from) only sex full sized chicks and still get it wrong maybe 10% of the time. They do not try to sex bantams. The people sexing them need to do thousands of chicks in a fairly short time, so they are not wasting time. Bantams are harder to sex because they are smaller.

Places like MyPetChickens are not a hatchery. They get chicks from some of the nurseries we use, but they slow down the sexing process so the person doing it can really study the bantam and usually get it right. For something like that if they are unsure of a bantam's sex they grab another one. Some are easier than others.

Thei higher shipping costs are because they get special handling and often special packaging. Sexing would be part of that handling charge. You are paying for a service.

 

[MamaWolf4]

Ahhh... That makes total sense. Thank you so much for explaining it to me!! Now to decide if I want to pay that premium price...