The Rural Voice, 1999-03, Page 38o poultry people, a feather
T
sexer is just one of several
necessary jobs in their
hatchery. The work consists in
separating pullets from cockerels by
fanning the chicks' wing feathers to
determine its sex and also to remove
bad chickens or culls which may be
deformed in some way or are just
plain dead.
Accuracy is essential. One feather
sexer will check several
thousand chicks
in one working
day. Eye and
back strain can
make the job
difficult, and
with most
hatcheries,
talking is not
allowed to prevent
any possible
mistakes.
At my particular
hatchery, minimal
conversation is allowed. I
find it helps to revive my
energy again when I feel my
eyes tire. It has also given me
some very amusing anecdotes.
The importance of our job is
certainly not conveyed quite clearly
in our job title. All you have to do is
tell someone outside the poultry
business that you are a feather sexer
and get ready for the comments.
After calling a radio station for a
contest, the D.J. asked me what my
job title was. "I'm a feather sexer," I
said.
"I think I could use a feather sexer
34 THE RURAL VOICE
Confessions of a chicken sexer
Life has its embarrassing moments
when you try to explain
your job in a chicken hatchery
By Linda Sachs
at home," he replied.
A co-worker of mine told another
person her job title and was asked,
"Do you work a lot of nights?"
When asked what I do, I usually
try to avoid my title to save the
tedious explanation that always
follows, unless I'm feeling
particularly mischievous
and want to
while on the job. One lady was heard
to utter, "Lucky chick, gets sexed
twice," as one of her chicks fell back
into the carousel after she had
determined its sex and tried to toss it
to its proper place.
When my hatchery first switched
to feather sex chicks, management
thought there would be fewer
mistakes if the sexers called out their
chick before tossing it.
Fortunately, they did not make
this a policy for I'm sure the
chick's sex would have been
abbreviated, and we would
have heard things like,
"Pull ... cock ..."
It would seem that
subtle, sexual
innuendoes have
become another
component of
the job.
Perhaps, that
would
have been
prevented
if the head
of the
poultry
industry
had given us a
more discreet title
like C.W.S. (chicken
wing sexers) or something. But
it certainly wouldn't induce the
amusement the real title does or be
nearly as interesting. Which leads me
to suspect that the person or persons
responsible for my job title must
have had a good sense of humour.0
shock
someone. Even
us respectable lady
feather sexers can get rather crude
Linda Sachs lives in Ayton, Ontario.