Chick Sexer: The $60K a Year Job Nobody Wants

[Grey Fox]

[Razgovory]

700 chicks an hour.

I don't think that Wilt Chamberlain did that well.

[CountDeMoney]

Look at Raz, driving to the hoop.

[jimmy olsen]

700 chicks an hour.

3£ for every 100 chicks.

So, 21£ an hour ($32.13)

[Grey Fox]

It's way too much work.

[Monoriu]

I don't understand.  Why are roosters not wanted?  Hens lay eggs and don't need roosters to do so.  Presumably that's the reason why hens are preferred.  But chicken meat is still valuable?  Is the meat from roosters so bad that they are not edible?

[Syt]

Sorry, I missed that line.

Maybe they meant "three minutes."

Anyway, I feel like the speed/numbers they're asking for is unrealistic.  Maybe if a machine presents them to you in batches of twenty-five or something.

They've shown this job on TV once (Dirty Jobs, maybe?), and the speed they were working at were indeed crazy.

[Maximus]

I don't understand.  Why are roosters not wanted?  Hens lay eggs and don't need roosters to do so.  Presumably that's the reason why hens are preferred.  But chicken meat is still valuable?  Is the meat from roosters so bad that they are not edible?

Meat chickens and egg chickens are very different breeds. No one wants to spend the money to raise a rooster that is genetically optimized for laying eggs.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't understand.  Why are roosters not wanted?  Hens lay eggs and don't need roosters to do so.  Presumably that's the reason why hens are preferred.  But chicken meat is still valuable?  Is the meat from roosters so bad that they are not edible?

Meat chickens and egg chickens are very different breeds. No one wants to spend the money to raise a rooster that is genetically optimized for laying eggs.

They can sell the chicken feet to Korea and China

[Maximus]

You can do that with the hens when they're done laying.

[Agelastus]

Sorry, I missed that line.

Maybe they meant "three minutes."

Anyway, I feel like the speed/numbers they're asking for is unrealistic.  Maybe if a machine presents them to you in batches of twenty-five or something.

World record speed is apparently something like 3 seconds a chick (according to an article about the decline of Japanese chicken sexers.) When this came up on QI it was said that the technique only requires one hand so most sexers will be testing two chicks at once; do the math.

[The Brain]

Check your sex!

[Maladict]

They've shown this job on TV once (Dirty Jobs, maybe?), and the speed they were working at were indeed crazy.

I miss that show 

[derspiess]

700 chicks an hour.

I miss college

[Legbiter]

Anyway, I'd much rather have a job as a sorter of human beings, deciding whether they get to live in cages or just get turned into food.  Surely that pays $60k?

You should have been a New Dealer in the MacArthur shogunate. Alas, born in the wrong era.