Sankui is right. The appearance of the chicks that have just emerged from the shell is very similar. From a distance, they look almost the same. It is difficult to tell which is just a rooster or a hen based on their appearance alone.

So how can we tell which is just a rooster and which is just a hen when the appearance is consistent?

Zhang Ran then grabbed a chick, spread the hair near his butt, then gently squeezed it with his hand, and showed to Sankui: "The hen is the one with obvious red bulge near this chicken's butt!"

Then, Zhang Ran took out a little rooster from the chicken cage and showed Sankui in the same way: "Like this, round, without obvious bulge, then this must be a rooster."

"It's that simple?" Sankui said a little unbelievable.

Zhang Ran couldn't help but smile and said, "How difficult do you think it's still difficult? In fact, finding the right method is that simple!"

In fact, the method Zhang Ran used was the experience accumulated by the working people in later generations through exploration, with almost no error rate, and it was also the best way to select chicks.

Moreover, from a biological point of view, this method of looking at chicken butts is also very scientific.

Chicken is a type of bird, and almost all bird reproductive organs and excretion organs are two-in-one, called the cloaca.

Although the cloaca of the chicks has not developed particularly significantly, as long as the chicks have excretion ability, their cloaca has characteristics. Moreover, depending on the male and female, the cloaca of the chickens is also different. The pointed one is the hen and the round one is the rooster, which is easy to distinguish.

In fact, when looking at the chick, what you really look at is not the chicken butt, but its cloaca.

Of course, Zhang Ran did not explain this principle in detail to Sankui, and probably he couldn't explain it clearly, so he simply told him how to distinguish it.

After learning from Zhang Ran's mouth how to distinguish male and female chicks, Sankui immediately grabbed the chicks and squeezed them gently with his hands, then looked down, raised his head excitedly and said, "Brother Ran, is this just a rooster?"

Zhang Ran glanced casually, nodded and said, "That's right, it's a rooster!"

"Really? That's great!"

After receiving Zhang Ran's affirmative answer, Sankui's expression became even more excited. He grabbed another chick. After looking at it, he said to Zhang Ran like a treasure: "Brother Ran, this chicken has a sharp butt and a small red dot. It must be a hen, right?"

"Yes! It's a hen!"

"Haha, it's indeed a hen! It's really OK!"

Sankui said, then grabbed the chicks with great enthusiasm, and used the method taught by Zhang Ran to look at them and have a lot of fun.

Seeing this, Zhang Ran couldn't help but feel a little headache and said helplessly: "Sankui, since you like to divide male and female so much, let's change it! You'll break your beak, how about I'll cut my wings?"

"Okay! OK! Come, change!"

As he said that, Sankui quickly moved the bamboo stool and sat next to Zhang Ran, picked up the kitchen knife on the fire, and said to Zhang Ran: "Come on, Brother Ran! You can start!"

"Okay!" Zhang Ran nodded, moved outward with a bamboo stool, and at the same time reminded Sankui: "Be careful when cutting the chicks' beaks. Just gently smooth the sharp corners on their beaks. Don't burn them!"

"Yeah, I'll be careful!"

......

More than 700 chicks had wings, beaks, and the work of distinguishing male and female males for nearly three hours. When Zhang Ran and Sankui finished all the chicks, it was afternoon.

Through the method taught by Zhang Ran, he and Sankui separated nearly 300 roosters from 700 chicks.

In order to place the little roosters in these chicken cages, Zhang Ran and the others spent some time dividing the chicken farm into two parts, and placing the rooster and the hen on both sides of the fence.

The reason why Zhang Ran wanted to raise roosters separately from hens is mainly because, under normal circumstances, the growth rate of the little roosters is far higher than that of the little hens, and the roosters are aggressive and like to protect food. If the little roosters are allowed to mix in the flock of chickens, it will seriously affect the growth rate of the little hens.

Moreover, from the perspective of economic value alone, the benefits that can be generated between raising roosters and hens are also very different.

For example, when hens are raised, they can lay eggs, and eggs can be sold for money. But what about roosters? They grow up with the same feed, but roosters cannot lay eggs, creating profits.

In addition to killing and eating meat, at most, you can only sing or breeding.

Besides, one rooster to dawn is enough. If there are too many, people will not be able to scream every morning, and they will not be able to stand it.

As for breeding, every twenty hens are enough to pair with a rooster. If there are too many, it is a waste, so there is no need.

Even in later generations, people will generally separate the chicks from male and female shortly after they emerge from the shell.

Moreover, in order to maximize the benefits of breeding and save many costs such as feed, poultry houses, labor, etc., farms generally only raise hens as laying hens, while roosters... unless free-range chickens or those that require breeding, roosters are rarely used.

Later, artificial hatching technology was developed, and large-scale farms could hatch tens of thousands of chicks at one time, and the survival rate was as high as about 99%, so you can choose whatever you want and you can do whatever you want.

However, Zhang Ran's current situation is that there are few chickens and more feed, and the chicks are not easy to hatch, which is very precious, which is exactly the opposite of the situation in later generations. Therefore, even if these roosters cannot lay eggs, Zhang Ran plans to raise them first. At worst, when they grow up, they can kill them to eat meat.

More than 700 chicks hatched in this batch, plus the more than 60 chicks that Zhang Ran hatched before and hundreds of chicks purchased from Xinfeng Market, the total number of chicks in the new chicken farm reached nearly 900.

With so many chickens concentrated on raising them, there are many things to pay attention to, such as lighting, water sources, temperatures, hygiene, and many other issues that need to be paid attention to.

Especially the hygiene problems in chicken farms are the top priority and must be dealt with well, otherwise it is easy to cause epidemic problems.

In order to prevent this newly hatched chicken from dying halfway, Zhang Ran personally took on the important task of feeding the chickens.

While recalling some of the various issues that need to be paid attention to when raising chickens in later generations, he adjusted them in combination with the current actual conditions, and recorded the problems arising from the process of raising chicks and the experience he summarized with wooden calves and sorted them into a book.
Chapter completed!