➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[CoturnixComplex]

So, get this: there is some preliminary evidence to indicate that the temperature at which the parents (probably the hen specifically) are incubated at can have an effect on the gender spread of the following generation.

I love epigenetics! They mess everything up! Poor Lamarck. Darwin got all the credit and was only half right.

 

[TheLaboratoryBF]

Thanks everybody! Hoping the females hold as I was hoping for four and one male to start my quail keeping adventure...here’s one of the Italians standing naturally for a little better representation of the chest speckling (this is one I have my fingers crossed on as I really want to keep it...it’s large and more docile than the others):

 

[007Sean]

So, get this: there is some preliminary evidence to indicate that the temperature at which the parents (probably the hen specifically) are incubated at can have an effect on the gender spread of the following generation.

@CoturnixComplex , I agree with you about temperature affecting the sex of a developing embryo. There have been numerous studies conducted on incubation temperatures and gender. It is thought that higher temperatures will produce higher ratios of males to females than the normally thought of 50/50 ratio.

I have also conducted my own experiments on shape of the egg and the ability to discern sex of the embryo.
My preliminary findings are that eggs that have a very pronounced pointed end are male embryos and the 'rounded' eggs are female embryos.
I found this to be true, to some degree. The trouble I had determining the sex came about at hatching. I need to mark the shell in a place that won't be destroyed during pipping and zipping. Also, some eggs are easy to tell which end is pointed but it's the ones that aren't quite round or pointed that throw the proverbial 'monkey wrench' into the picture...it could go either way.
I'm going to conduct this experiment again this year. Going to keep better records, and hopefully it will provide some useful information...at least with pheasant eggs and sex determination. I'm using only Golden or Amherst eggs for this experiment, because of the simple fact, they can be sexed at hatch.

 

[Sara L]

@CoturnixComplex , I agree with you about temperature affecting the sex of a developing embryo. There have been numerous studies conducted on incubation temperatures and gender. It is thought that higher temperatures will produce higher ratios of males to females than the normally thought of 50/50 ratio.

I have also conducted my own own experiments on shape of the egg and the ability to discern sex of the embryo.
My preliminary findings are that eggs that have a very pronounced pointed end are male embryos and the 'rounded' eggs are female embryos.
I found this to be true, to some degree. The trouble I had determining the sex came about at hatching. I need to mark the shell in a place that won't be destroyed during pipping and zipping. Also, some eggs are easy to tell which end is pointed but it's the ones that aren't quite round or pointed that through the proverbial 'monkey wrench' into the picture...it could go either way.
I'm going to conduct this experiment again this year. Going to keep better records, and hopefully it will provide some useful information...at least with pheasant eggs and sex determination. I'm using only Golden or Amherst eggs for this experiment, because of the simple fact, they can be sexed at hatch.

Try separating the "boy" or "girl" eggs in a hatching basket, so you know the percentage correct?

 

[007Sean]

I love epigenetics! They mess everything up! Poor Lamarck. Darwin got all the credit and was only half right.

Also, some species will produce greater numbers of males or females based on the concentration of one sex versus the other in a particular area or region.

 

[007Sean]

Try separating the "boy" or "girl" eggs in a hatching basket, so you know the percentage correct?

Yeah, I could do that, I have enough incubators to designate/dedicate one bator to male eggs? And another to female eggs? So I think this is the way I'm going to perform this little experiment this year.
Last year, I just marked the eggs with either a male sign or female sign on the shell. And sometimes I didn't mark the eggs at all and they were all mixed together in several incubators. Not very scientific but it was adequate enough to 'test' the theory.
ETA - Going to have to buy another computer or an external hard drive...I'm running out of storage on my current CPU...no more room to add memory boards! going to be alot of pictures taken.

 

[BReeder!]

Yeah, I could do that, I have enough incubators to designate/dedicate one bator to male eggs? And another to female eggs? So I think this is the way I'm going to perform this little experiment this year.
Last year, I just marked the eggs with either a male sign or female sign on the shell. And sometimes I didn't mark the eggs at all and they were all mixed together in several incubators. Not very scientific but it was adequate enough to 'test' the theory.

Seperate incubators would add a potential variable. There's no guarantee that the incubators are going to operate exactly the same on several levels: temperature, temp. variance, air flow, humidity level and humidify variance, lighting, noise, e.g. rotation cycle and angle, etc. Keeping the eggs in a single incubator would be the way to go. Seperate them for hatching though.

 

[007Sean]

Seperate incubators would add a potential variable. There's no guarantee that the incubators are going to operate exactly the same on several levels: temperature, temp. variance, air flow, humidity level and humidify variance, lighting, noise, e.g. rotation cycle and angle, etc. Keeping the eggs in a single incubator would be the way to go. Seperate them for hatching though.

That's not a controlling factor...only testing the 'shape' of the egg versus gender. The temps are close enough that it won't have a significant outcome on sex determination.

 

[TheLaboratoryBF]

Next question: these are the temps in our area over next ten days...assuming my birds will be at least mostly feathered out next week (at three weeks old), are they ok to move to outdoor hutch? It will be protected from wind/rain.

 

[R2elk]

That's not a controlling factor...only testing the 'shape' of the egg versus gender. The temps are close enough that it won't have a significant outcome on sex determination.

With chicken eggs there has been more than enough proof that you cannot predict the sex based on the shape of the egg. One of my hens laid only the blunt eggs. Her offspring were essentially 50% male and 50% female over the years. All of my hens laid only pointy eggs or blunt eggs including a few that laid nearly round eggs. No hen laid both types of eggs.