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The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

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Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#61

Post by bayesian_horse »

saalweachter wrote: post #25
devit wrote: post #14

Any progress on genetically engineering chicken so that only female chicks are produced, or even better artificially producing eggs without any chickens at all?

This may actually be more difficult for chickens. Chickens use the ZW sex chromosomes, and females are ZW while males are ZZ. This means, among other things, that it is the female germ cell which determines the sex of the offspring, by contributing either a Z or a W. My understanding is that with mammals, you can centrifuge sperm to (more-or-less) separate "X" and "Y" sperm, changing the odds of conception in the dir…

You could inject the hen with a CRISPR vector introducing a mutation into the Z chromosome which would be letal to eggs. Then put a saving gene on the W chromosome. Or a letal mutation on the W chromosome, to select for male broilers.

And no, it's not centrifugation. The DNA in the chromosomes is stained, then a cell sorter with a laser determines which ones have more or less chromatin (the Y is missing an arm vs X).

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#62

Post by bayesian_horse »

petermcneeley wrote: post #37

Is sperm sex selection not possible? (it is in humans) Is this detectable via ultrasound of egg? Why not breed chickens with visible sex difference?

It would also be impractical because you need too much sperm to inseminate chickens, in terms of producing profit.

In cattle, this is a lot easier, because bull semen can be diluted quite heavily and still produce viable offspring.

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#63

Post by bayesian_horse »

golergka wrote: post #4

This whole thing just sounds like a dream for ML. Have anyone tried it yet?

I've thought about that, and in short, the problem would be acquiring the data in the first place. In the fully automated case, a machine would have to pick up the chick, turn it the right way, pop the vent, and release it, all without killing it. A rather complicated task for robotics, and this could get very error prone or very maintenance intensive.

Next way would be to have a Human put the chick over a scanner in the right orientation. This solution is less attractive, because you still need to pay a worker, and that worker would only have to learn the sexing skill for a few weeks to be equally as fast as the machine...

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#64

Post by bayesian_horse »

daveguy wrote: post #19

If it is such a gestalt, not explainable function. I am almost certain it isn't just visual. It would be interesting to see the level of accuracy with just video of the vent exposure. Even more so, just an image. The article states the sexers accidentally kill some chicks at first when learning because of the force required to expose the vents. The force required could provide some clue. The way the vent moves under…

If it were so easy as to use ultrasound, people would do that already.

The resolution of ultrasound, even at that little distance, is pretty bad. I doubt if the reproductive organs are big enough at that age. If I remember correctly, they don't differ that much at this stage either.

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#66

Post by KozmoNau7 »

jedimastert wrote: post #52
swebs wrote: post #42

Funny, because the How It's Made documentary shows them easily being separated by checking two rows of feathers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVf6KXVIZ5I&t=197s

The casual-ness of those workers just chucking baby chicks into shoots weirds me out quite a bit. Like, I'm sure they're fine, but it's just so weird.

When you handle thousands of then every single day, you probably tend to disassociate from the individual chicks.

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#67

Post by gambiting »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #23
gambiting wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the males were just thrown into the mincer, dying within the instant they hit the blades? It looks gruesome, but I would hardly call it painful.

How can you tell? It sounds pretty painful. There is a painless way of killing, through asphyxiation by inert gas (e.g. nitrogen, but not carbon dioxide).

I don't know what part of dying instantly would be painful - that's sort of the point of the "instantly" part. If you watch a video of this process on YouTube it's incredibly quick.

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#69

Post by zawerf »

eric_the_read wrote: post #16
Falling3 wrote: post #2

I've worked with chickens for years. Among lay people, being able to correctly sex a chicken after 2-3 weeks is a difficult skill. It's incredibly interesting that these people are able to do it so easily at such an early age. It's also put to very disturbing uses. The females go on to be used as layer hens and the males are kill within hours of hatching - generally in gruesome/painful ways.

I cannot for the life of me remember the context, but I remember reading about skills that can't be taught; only learned; chicken-sexing was one of these.

Do you remember the list of other skills?

I think it's kind of like teaching someone how to ride a bike. No amount of theory and coaching will help until the connections form in their brain.

Smarter everyday has an interesting video[1] on this phenomenon where he showed that it takes considerable effort to learn to ride a "backward" bike and once you do, you will forget how to ride a normal one and need to relearn it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

Re: The Lucrative Art of Chicken Sexing (2017)

#70

Post by passiveincomelg »

Falling3 wrote: post #33
toast0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it more disturbing to kill the males on the day they hatch or weeks later?

Taking away their life before they've had any opportunity to experience it is fairly disturbing. But it really depends on what their life looks like for those few weeks.

Being shredded alive sucks, but even worse is the permanent torture the hens have to endure until they die.
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