Chicks of different sexes can appear quite similar. Chick sexing is the method of distinguishing the sex of chicken and other hatchlings by a trained person called a Chick Sexer or Chicken Sexer. It’s a job that pays pays $60,000 a year and nobody seems to want to do it.
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Believe it or not, ‘chick sexer’ is a real job, and it pays quite handsomely. For over $60,000 a year, a chick sexer has to look at chicks’ backsides all day to determine if they are male or female.
The process, known as ‘vent sexing’ involves squeezing the faeces out of the chick and opening up the its anal vent, to check for a small ‘bump’ that indicates it is male. Understandably, the job doesn’t have many takers, and British poultry farmers are struggling to attract employees to fill the position.
Although it sounds easy, chick sexing is quite complicated and requires an incredible amount of skill. Workers are specially trained on how to spot ‘miniscule differences’ in the size and shape of a chick’s genitalia to ascertain whether it will grow up to be a rooster or a hen.
Chick sexers are expected to sort 800-1,200 chicks an hour, with a 97-98 percent accuracy – that’s just three seconds per bird. “It takes three years to train someone so they develop the sensitivity and dexterity to reliably sex the bird and a lot of people don’t want to spend that amount of time training,” said Andrew Large, chief executive of the British Poultry Council.
