Egg Gender Myth

[_Featherian]

If eggs with a low shape index will be male chicks and eggs with a high shape index will be female chicks, what will be each of the 5 eggs I have here? And is this real?

 

[NatJ]

If eggs with a low shape index will be male chicks and eggs with a high shape index will be female chicks, what will be each of the 5 eggs I have here? And is this real?


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I will be curious to see the results (3 weeks for eggs to hatch, probably two months to be sure which ones are males: maybe sometime in June?)

Practically speaking, egg shape does not work to predict which ones will be males or females.

But just for the sake of guessing, I would say that 5 is round, 3 and 4 are long/skinny, 2 is in-between, and I can't decide about #1 because the shadow is tricking my eyes.

Whether round eggs are supposed to hatch males vs. females depends on what source you read. Recent internet-based sources say females come from round eggs and males from long pointy ones, but the Roman author Pliny (about 2 thousand years ago) said that round eggs would produce males and long pointed eggs would produce females.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

If eggs with a low shape index will be male chicks and eggs with a high shape index will be female chicks, what will be each of the 5 eggs I have here? And is this real?


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this is just a legend. nice eggs though, what breeds do you have?

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Unfortunately, just an old wive's tale. I was very disappointed when I found that it was a myth as well

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Too bad there's not a way to tell a gender of the chick in the egg before it hatches.

 

[Azulette]

Too bad there's not a way to tell a gender of the chick in the egg before it hatches.

There is, it's just not available/viable for backyard farmers yet. Maybe in a few++ more years!

https://agfundernews.com/in-ovo-sex...eu-as-tech-to-end-male-chick-culling-advances

https://www.respeggt.com/solutions/

 

[nuthatched]

What we call the yolk is the actual egg. The way a hen encases it has no bearing on gender of any potential chicks if the egg is fertilized.

 

[NatJ]

There is, it's just not available/viable for backyard farmers yet. Maybe in a few++ more years!

https://agfundernews.com/in-ovo-sex...eu-as-tech-to-end-male-chick-culling-advances

https://www.respeggt.com/solutions/

A while back, I read about another method as well.

Using a gene for sex-linked albinism, they were able to tell the sex by candling at an early age, because the albinos had white eyes and the non-albinos had black eyes.

Of course that required a special breeding program to produce the eggs for sexing/hatching.

The more recent ones in those links are meant to be applied to chickens of all breeds and colors, which makes them much more useful.

 

[Azulette]

A while back, I read about another method as well.

Using a gene for sex-linked albinism, they were able to tell the sex by candling at an early age, because the albinos had white eyes and the non-albinos had black eyes.

Of course that required a special breeding program to produce the eggs for sexing/hatching.

The more recent ones in those links are meant to be applied to chickens of all breeds and colors, which makes them much more useful.

That another cool method!

Yeah, after I made that post today I did a bit of a deep dive into the current sexing methods and came across this recent technical research paper "A Review of Key Techniques for in Ovo Sexing of Chicken Eggs" (https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/3/677). Some methods (with highly advanced equipment; not viable for backyard farmers) can detect sex as early as 5 days!! Technology is wild and it's getting better/more efficient day by day!