Sexing eggs!

A couple of years ago I was going to do this experiment with cream legbar eggs so that I would know at hatch the sex and not have to wait but I never got the eggs.

Sex link eggs would be the perfect way to test it. Instant gratification.

Just had the most terrible hatches from the last three broodies. So we have 24 chicks at this stage from randomly selected eggs. The next three are from selected eggs. Let's hope we end up with a reasonable result from these.

6 littleHens said:

A couple of years ago I was going to do this experiment with cream legbar eggs so that I would know at hatch the sex and not have to wait but I never got the eggs.

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That is a terrific idea! Totally instant gratification, like lazy gardener said. Barred rocks would be a good bet too, with their head spots.

I've got six Barred Rock hens and a red Easter Egger rooster. I've hatched a few batches of chicks this fall, so I know that my rooster works for visible sexing at hatch. I'll be hatching sexlink Easter Eggers starting in December. I'll try selecting for the roundest eggs and see what I come up with. My last batch of chicks were almost entirely male. I only had one surviving pullet in that clutch. The batch before that was mostly female.

How deep from each end are you measuring? ie from the narrow tip towards center and from the rounded tip towards center. I guess I got the picture. My laying hen has not mated with my three roosters. She won't let them and she rules the roost period. That includes my male and female Guineas. She is Wyandotte and the roos are Marans. She lays an egg almost every day but she is totally non broody and will not sit on them. She tells me when she's going in and she announces to me that she's done. She roosts with the roosters in one coop at night and the other coop she goes in and lays her egg and then leaves. She has a fit if the roosters visit that coop. If she ever mates I will have to incubate the eggs and I really don't want any more roosters even though mine let me pet and hold them and they never have attacked (except each other) but that may change. I'm willing to check it out.

One suggestion for next time, maybe call it a BYC myth busters thread rather than experiment. By saying you are doing the same as the myth busters where no matter how silly sounding the myth they try their best to actually prove its true rather than poo pooing or trying to disprove then at the end give it a busted or plausible you might get less of those other comments ;-). The point with mythbusting is you have to try to prove its true and that's why it's fun . Their TVs show would have ended years ago if they didn't try and bust stuff we are already sure are myths.

good luck! Looking forward to seeing how it all ends

jeffkerle65 said:

I have set 19 hen eggs, 9 Isa Brown & 10 Golden Spangled Hamburg, all are rounded point eggs so I will let you know next week when they hatch, between 10/25/15 <=> 10/30/15.
I also set 5 turkey eggs, 3 are longer(on right) & 2 are shorter(on left).


I have marked them as Jenny for the shorter ones & Jake for the longer ones, due to hatch 11/1/15 <=> 11/2/15.
Don't know but will find out soon.

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They all look very pointy to me - Good luck!

wldrabbit said:

How deep from each end are you measuring? ie from the narrow tip towards center and from the rounded tip towards center. I guess I got the picture. My laying hen has not mated with my three roosters. She won't let them and she rules the roost period. That includes my male and female Guineas. She is Wyandotte and the roos are Marans. She lays an egg almost every day but she is totally non broody and will not sit on them. She tells me when she's going in and she announces to me that she's done. She roosts with the roosters in one coop at night and the other coop she goes in and lays her egg and then leaves. She has a fit if the roosters visit that coop. If she ever mates I will have to incubate the eggs and I really don't want any more roosters even though mine let me pet and hold them and they never have attacked (except each other) but that may change. I'm willing to check it out.

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I measure about a third of the way down from the pointy end. I think it varies hugely too, I have basically sorted the eggs by pointiness and only set the half with the lower ratio. This isnt ideal because if they are mostly male to begin with, I'm still going to get some males, which I do. I suspect I need to be more ruthless and maybe just set a third or a quarter of them.

appps said:

One suggestion for next time, maybe call it a BYC myth busters thread rather than experiment. By saying you are doing the same as the myth busters where no matter how silly sounding the myth they try their best to actually prove its true rather than poo pooing or trying to disprove then at the end give it a busted or plausible you might get less of those other comments ;-). The point with mythbusting is you have to try to prove its true and that's why it's fun . Their TVs show would have ended years ago if they didn't try and bust stuff we are already sure are myths.

good luck! Looking forward to seeing how it all ends

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When I started my thread, I did my original post, and made it very clear that I was experimenting. I also made it very clear that I knew it was not set up in a scientific manner, as I had too many variables going at once. I invited folks to follow along, but made it clear that it was MY EXPERIMENT, and did not need input about all the reasons it was not going to work. Had to do one more reminder, then for the most part, the nay-sayers left. But, yes, you do raise a valid point that Myth Busting might be better received. However... I'm not really concerned about how folks receive it! My results have spoken for themselves.

KirstieJG said:

I measure about a third of the way down from the pointy end. I think it varies hugely too, I have basically sorted the eggs by pointiness and only set the half with the lower ratio. This isnt ideal because if they are mostly male to begin with, I'm still going to get some males, which I do. I suspect I need to be more ruthless and maybe just set a third or a quarter of them.

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I did not do any measuring. Just set out the week's supply of eggs, tried to match them up by color to try to figure out who was laying what, and then divided them into 2 piles. Then went to the round pile, and eliminated a few more till I got to a reasonable clutch size for the bator.