Air sac determines sex.

[BackyardinWales]

I recently read a booklet by Thomas Quisenberry that was titled How to Tell The Sex of an Egg Before Incubation. In the book it described candling a chicken egg prior to incubation. If the air sac is off center and can only be viewed from the front and sides of the egg, a female will hatch. If the air sac is centered in the end and can be viewed from all sides, a male will hatch. This was proved in a University study. Mrs. Noda Fry was the person who reported this method to Mr. Quisenberry. She hatched 96 eggs and 92 were female. She also described holding a chick by the head. If the legs relax and hang, this is a cockerel. If the legs draw up toward the head/abdomen, this is a female.
Has anyone else ever tried this? I am about to put a couple dozen eggs in the incubator that I have candled using this method.

If it's true, I may have some girls in my hatch lol

 

[Kortniruth]

Feather sexing can only be done on certain crosses. If the chick doesn't have the right genetics it won't work

Finding this out the hard way :/

 

[Ladybird CA]

Years ago, I hatched one batch of sexlinks.
Since I could tell males from females by color as they hatched, I found it quite interesting that a bunch of pullet hatched first, then a few each of cockerels and pullets, then the slowpokes were all cockerels.

I have no idea if this was a one-time oddity or if the pattern would hold true for bigger experiments. I haven't been in a position to test it more since then.

I don't remember exactly how many chicks were involved, except that it was a relatively large group for me at the time (so I'd say more than a dozen chicks, but probably less than two dozen.)


Maybe it was ignored. Or maybe it doesn't work.


I'll be curious to hear what you discover from the eggs you are incubating.
Do you intend to keep track of which chicks come from which eggs, or just the total count of males and females? Getting two males and four females from six eggs would not be particularly surprising, if you can't show which ones came from where.

Yes I’m planning to give my broody EE the egg of hers I believe is female and a polish egg. The other 4 will stay in the incubator. The last time I had a broody I gave her 4 Silver Spangled Hamburg eggs. 2 were dirty and didn’t develop. 2 hatched but one died. The remaining was a cockerel and we rehomed them together so I don’t want to give broodies cockerel eggs. That leaves 2 polish eggs which will also stay in the incubator. At lockdown I might put them in mesh bags but the incubator is a small 12 egg Smart Incubator so I’m not sure I’ll do that. They are due April 19 and so far I don’t have anything planned that week except an appointment on the 17 and two on the 22 so I might just watch them. Thankfully chickens aren’t like bobwhite quail and don’t all hatch at once. I do hope they hatch on the 19th because I plan to collect eggs again starting April 9, set them April 19 and have them hatched for when I pick up 2 day old sexed chicks, a Silver laced Wyandotte and a Barnevelder on May 11th. The fathers of the chicks one died March 25 and the other was rehomed a few days before that so we will see how many will be viable. I’ve read it’s from 2-4 weeks after mating.

 

[Ladybird CA]

Of the 25 eggs 9 were from my Colombian rock with only one having a side air cell. The EE 7 eggs with only 1 side air cell. The rest of the 6 eggs with side air cells are from white egg layers which tend to be more stressed out birds which have been said to produce more female. Mrs. Fry’s birds were brown leghorns. Would have been interesting to see how many she found were cockerels before incubation

 

[JacinLarkwell]

tend to be more stressed out birds which have been said to produce more female.

What? Color of the egg doesn't have anything to do with how stressed a bird is

 

[MysteryChicken]

Name it Hermie if it hatches. Although Mrs. Noda Fry said eggs without air cells won’t hatch. Wonder what 2 air cells would do, 2 headed dragon?

I've got it incubating, so I'm planning on updating. But I'm not here about the whole Air Cell determines Sex of chicks thing though.

 

[Ladybird CA]

Was it a shipped egg? I wonder if it was one big air cell that split into two during transport

 

[MysteryChicken]

Was it a shipped egg? I wonder if it was one big air cell that split into two during transport

Nope, collected directly from my chickens. I can't afford ordering hatching eggs this year.

 

[Ladybird CA]

I think I’ll use at least one mesh bag since I have 3 remaining polish eggs then maybe use marker on their bellies or toenails til they are big enough for the leg bands I have that fit their parents at about a month old

 

[TexasBlues]

Reading the replies to my question, which, I guess hoped would result in positive responses, has truly left me disappointed. Basically, I have had a few, very few positive responses, and a list of responses informing me how foolish I was to
1. waste my time on reading such an article from so long ago
2. dare to think such a method was possible much less probable
3. would harm my new hatched chicks- at the time I posted that response, I was already frustrated with the responses previously received.
4. and how dumb I was because I did not have or investigate the scientific data before making such a post. Possibly leading others down the path of my stupidity for repeating a 100 year old article.

I'm disappointed that this site has made me feel so inadequate in such a short amount of time. I will no longer be following this post, nor will I be posting any additional information.

You should read the posts and respond positively or not at all. Telling someone their ideas are BS is just inconsiderate. If you have not tried something or heard about it, and that was the question, why respond at all.

I’ve found similar results from the members here. A good technique is to go back through the thread and put each one of the complainers, defeatists, downers, killjoys, and sourpusses all on ignore.