Air sac determines sex.

[Ladybird CA]

Sold these chicks today

That’s 4 female cream legbars, 2 male. I checked their shells, 2 side, an off centered, one I couldn’t see an air cell and one centered. One my cat somehow snuck off and DH threw it out so I don’t know what that one said but the chick that didn’t hatch had a centered air cell and it was a male (white spot on head). There’s 3 cream legbars that were due today that haven’t hatched yet, I’ll update on those.

 

[Ladybird CA]

I went back to my April 17 post about these 7 cream legbar eggs and it said:

7 cream legbar eggs:
1. 50 g, 4/11 centered air cell
2. 60 g, 4/11, c
6. 52 g 4/12, c

4. 57 g, 4/12, s

3. 59 g, 4/11, oc
5. 58 g, 4/11, off centered

7. 63 g, 4/12, no air cell

Number 7 I didn’t see an air cell then I wrote that it is a side air cell after my candler arrived.

 

[NatJ]

I went back to my April 17 post about these 7 cream legbar eggs and it said:

7 cream legbar eggs:
1. 50 g, 4/11 centered air cell
2. 60 g, 4/11, c
6. 52 g 4/12, c

4. 57 g, 4/12, s

3. 59 g, 4/11, oc
5. 58 g, 4/11, off centered

7. 63 g, 4/12, no air cell

Number 7 I didn’t see an air cell then I wrote that it is a side air cell after my candler arrived.

So how accurate does that make the sexing on these eggs? I'm a bit lost on which eggs in this post went with which chicks in the previous post.

Your Legbars are a nice example of how handy it is to use autosexing breeds or sexlinks for testing egg-sexing ideas, because you don't have to track chicks for weeks before you can tell what sex they really are

 

[Ladybird CA]

I agree

Since I don’t have a reliable hatcher large enough to separate the chicks into bins I’m only reporting the air cell and genders .

Today a male and female hatched. The male from an egg labeled off centre. The female I can’t read my own writing but I think it said S for side air cell. It’s from me watching them hatch but often not able to

 

[Ladybird CA]

Pretty sure I wrote S but not entirely sure

 

[Ladybird CA]

I bought another dozen legbar eggs for the experiment but they were clear as the seller sadly lost her rooster. She will give me eggs next year as DH says no more chickens this year. They might be silkie eggs.

I got 3 legbar eggs from another seller, 2 with side air cells and 1 centered. One female did hatch from a side air cell and one male did hatch from the centered air cell.

The caliper’s shipment has been delayed to next week. Was supposed to arrive May 9.

Other chicks photos just for fun. They will be rehomed except maybe the Hamburg which hatched out of a side air cell.

Swedish flowers

Marans

Lavender Orpingtons

 

[Project Blue]

I've had chicken hatches that were mostly all female or male, though more like a dozen at a time. I've often wondered if it could be something similar to a reptile's sex being determined by temperature. Warmer temperatures during incubation hatches more males, cooler more females. It's probably just statistically speaking we are looking at large numbers for 50/50 male/female , smaller rarely would be an even 50/50 for the sexes. Though, like others have said, this must of already been carefully researched by the chicken industry.

 

[Ladybird CA]

Well so far the air cell theory is working. It’s just too bad I can’t do more experiments for a while but hopefully others will.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I've had chicken hatches that were mostly all female or male, though more like a dozen at a time. I've often wondered if it could be something similar to a reptile's sex being determined by temperature. Warmer temperatures during incubation hatches more males, cooler more females. It's probably just statistically speaking we are looking at large numbers for 50/50 male/female , smaller rarely would be an even 50/50 for the sexes. Though, like others have said, this must of already been carefully researched by the chicken industry.

Bird sex is determined by chromosomes, not temperature

 

[Ladybird CA]

I thought it might be affected by temperature because of chickens being related to reptiles and there seemed to be a correlation on weather until one day there wasn’t.