Poultry Studies 2017, Vol 14, Num, 1     (Pages: 013-019)

Sex Determination Methods of Chicks Before Hatching or Day-Old Age

Hüseyin Göger 1

1 Tavukçuluk Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü, Şehit Cem Ersever Caddesi 9/11 Gayret Mahallesi Yenimahalle/Ankara, Türkiye - In recent years, there have been great developments in the poultry sector as well as in all sectors. Despite all of the developments, one of the problems waiting for solution in poultry industry is not to be determined sex cheaply and widely in chicks at embryo stage. In the layer sector, one-day-old chicks in the hatcheries are generally sorted out by feather or vent sexing and male ones are killed This procedure involves billions of chicks worldwide per year, of which 420 million in Europe. Under the pressure of the ethically, the demand for new methods of sex determination `in ovo` is rapidly growing. Gender discrimination after incubation period causes economic losses and pressures for animal rights. In order to overcome the problems, a lot of researches are conducted to sex determination during embrional period before alloting the eggs into the incubator and during incubation period. This article focused on researches for determining the sex of the chicken embryo prior and during incubation and the existing methods which are commonly used in determining the sex of the day-old chicks after incubation. Keywords : Sex determination, embryo, egg, laying hens