Page 8: of Marine News Magazine (July 2026)

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Insights

Back to the Drawing Board

Chick Sexing, Wire Rope & AI

By Rik van Hemmen, Martin & Ottaway © Vera Kuttelvaserova/AdobeStock

Chick sexing is a core concept for an experienced engi- nique at experiment stations and universities. He was a neer. Fortunately, maritime engineers do not have to per- very accomplished chicken sexer with a reputed accuracy form chick sexing, but the concept is extremely important rate of 100%. Yogi trained American chick sexers and his and ties into engineering intuition and experience. technique became widely established in the United States.

We all know engineers and mechanics who have an His training method was very interesting. A new trainee amazing ability to diagnose certain problems that com- would be given a tray of chicks and was told to check the pletely elude solution by the rest of the community. vent of the chick and to drop the chick into a male or a

It is often called intuition, but there is actually no such female tray.

thing as intuition; it is actually related to learning and ex- All Yogi would do was tell the trainee whether the choice perience. Learning and experience, especially in a feedback was right or wrong. The difference between male and fe- loop can result in incredible human powers. male chick was so insigni? cant and fuzzy that initially the

Which bring me back to chick sexing. Chicken breed- trainee was just guessing, but by repeating this process, the ing is a weird world. Chicken breeders have very little use trainee would develop a subconscious selection ability that for roosters. Roosters are needed for inseminating female eventually resulted in very high levels of accuracy. chickens but for the rest are useless; they ? ght and they do Trained sexers can sex chicks in about 3 seconds result- not lay eggs. ing in the ability to sex thousands of chicks per day.

Therefore, chicken breeders want to get rid of male Some will call this intuition but it is actually expertise. chicks as soon as possible. However, newborn male and fe- Expertise in all its forms is what makes the world run, and male chicks are virtually indistinguishable from each other all expertise results from a form of chick sexing training.

and in the old days a chicken breeder had to wait until the Just last week I was asked to take a look at a machinery chicks matured to get rid of the males. Naturally it would damage, it started with a collection of photos of a damaged save a lot of money if only the sex of the chicks could be crankshaft, conrods, counterweights, pistons and connect- determined right after they were born. ing rods. I was not even half way through the photos and

This is where Professors Masui and Hashimoto come in, said: Loose counterweight. Later in the damage descrip- who in 1933 published a paper noting that there are very tion it was clear that the majority of the other inspectors slight differences in the anal vents (cloaca) of male and after exhaustive follow up investigations also had reached female hatchlings. the tentative conclusion that it was a loose counterweight.

In 1933, a gentleman by the name of Hikosaburo Yogi I don’t know what photo detail tipped me off on a was sent to the U.S. to demonstrate the vent sexing tech- loose counter weight. Those photos really were just a 8 | MN July 2026