Egg gender selection survey

[Kusanar]

"Round" and "Pointy" are pretty subjective, it would be better if you could chart the actual ratios of length to width and then compare. I could possibly try to put a chart together for you, but so far the data seems to be all over the place without much in common.

 

[CherriesBrood]

Very interesting! Here's my form, although my eggs are due to hatch in 2-3 days. I will update this form when they hatch and I sex them.

1. How many eggs to choose from for this incubation? 7

2. How many eggs set based on "female profile"? All

3. How many eggs survived to day 18? 6 (today is day 18)

6. Hatch date? Friday, but they usually hatch a day early

7. Comments: This was a female gender selected hatch. Yes, temp is kept at 99.5, but I don't think the reading is correct, and therefore every one of my hatches will usually hatch a day early.

 

[dekel18042]

 

[TroyerGal]

Super sorry to be a thread hijacker but... did anyone else see the Tyson ad on this thread? for chicken? isn't that just so insensitive??!

 

[aart]

"Round" and "Pointy" are pretty subjective, it would be better if you could chart the actual ratios of length to width and then compare. I could possibly try to put a chart together for you, but so far the data seems to be all over the place without much in common.

Ditto Dat^^

Wonders how sexing is done in each case and if it's followed up later.
<scratcheshead>.......what about the gender of unhatched eggs, nonfertile up to DIS?

 

[lazy gardener]

Ditto Dat^^

Wonders how sexing is done in each case and if it's followed up later.
<scratcheshead>.......what about the gender of unhatched eggs, nonfertile up to DIS?

Sexing will have to wait until chicks declare their gender, either by growing appropriate feathering for male or female, crowing or laying eggs! This is NOT a completely scientific survey, obviously. What it is, is a compilation of data from folks who are doing their own hatching. I tried to keep it simple, in terms of doing length/width ratios. When a flock keeper is able to identify the eggs laid by a single hen, and then eliminate all but the 1 - 2 "roundest" eggs, from HER clutch, that hen's ratio has little bearing when compared to the ratio of the other eggs laid by other hens. Of course it would be impossible to do the gender data on infertile eggs, early or late quitters, or even non-survivors that quit after pip, or even early after hatch, unless the late deaths were sex linked... AND the participant chooses to do an egg-topsy. Again, I'm choosing to keep it simple so that folks won't be disuaded from participating because of having too high expectations. At end of hatching season, the plan will be to take completed surveys, and work up the stats.

 

[3riverschick]

I think if egg shaped = determination of sex, that the large hatcheries would be implementing that knowledge by now.
Here's some lit on the subject. Note the dates of the articles. Latest one I ran across with believing this was 1843. ( could be some later ).

Poultry Production
By William Adams Lippincott ( 1914)
Pages 153 thru 155.
https://books.google.com/books?id=X... egg "sex of chick" subject:"poultry"&f=false
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The Poulterers' Guide: For Treating Diseases of Poultry. Giving Cause, Symptoms and Remedies for Their Cure. Also how to Caponize Fowls; and Feed and Rear Chickens Hatched in an Incubator
American Poultry Journal Print, 1885 - Poultry - 39 pages , Page 36
https://books.google.com/books?id=B... egg "sex of chick" subject:"poultry"&f=false
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The Poultry Book: Comprising the Characteristics, Management, Breeding, and ...
By William Wingfield, George William Johnson ( 1853 )

But we must now come to that important matter " the selection of eggs for sitting."
Presuming that the Shanghai fowl is no exception to other species, as regards those general laws of Nature which appear to regulate the production and shape of eggs, in this division of the gallinaceous tribe, what was said by Columella (and so recently delivered to the public in Mr. Trotter's treatise, in the twenty-seventh number of The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, as to the sex of eggs being discoverable from their form and the internal position of the air-cell,) next claims our attention.
Eggs in general—not of any particular kind of fowl—are there spoken of, with a view to such a selection being made as may present us with chickens of either sex, according to our will. Now for the plan that shall so happily proportion the denizens of our yards, and check the usual superabundance of the male sex in our broods :—" Select the round eggs, for they contain female birds, and reject the oblong-shaped, for they contain birds of the opposite sex."—(Page 181.) Again :—"By the position of the air-cell at the butt end of the egg, those may be selected which will produce the male sex; in these the aircell is in the centre of the end. If the cell be a little on one side, the egg will produce a female chick. The position of the air-cell is easily discovered by holding the egg between the eye and the light." But, nevertheless, the round egg, according to this theory, may still have the cell in the centre of the end, and therefore produce (if the cell argument be valid) a male chick; while, on the other hand, the oblong-shaped egg may have the air-cell on one side, and therefore the inmate should be of the feminine gender. We must admit, therefore, that these tests may be somewhat contradictory. For our own part, remembering how little if any variation is ever visible in the shape of the eggs of any one hen, we might suppose that the produce should invariably continue of one sex, of which we have no instance; we are, therefore, but little inclined, in this case, to assent to the opinion so zealously advocated in the essay we have referred to. But let our readers turn to Mr. Dixon's work on Domestic Poultry, from page 165 to 169, and we think that his able reasoning, which has been so satisfactory to ourselves, will be equally conclusive to their minds, with respect to the great improbability of any such distinction being observable. At any rate we may observe, for the benefit of those who may not have his book at hand, that we would require the same evidence as he there demands. "When any one will produce a brood consisting entirely of pullets, hatched from eggs selected with that view, I will allow that there exists practical criteria for judging beforehand the sex of an egg."
The same idea is certainly current in many parts of Cornwall; though there it is slightly modified, for little is said as to the air-cell one way or the other; and it is only the rounded form of the egg that is supposed to indicate the female sex of the embryo. But, were it so certain a matter, some one instance of the actual production of the different sexes, or some close approximation, at least, might be forthcoming. As yet, however, we have heard of none; nor can we say, in spite of present wonders, that we expect to do so at any future time.
The experiments referred to by Mr. Dixon would, however, certainly indicate the probability that, of twenty-four eggs laid by a single hen, the twelve largest would give a great majority of male birds, the others the same of pullets.
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Popular Science Oct 1925 Page 40
Cannot Tell The Sex of a Chicken By Shape Of the Egg
"Some declare that long, slim , heavy eggs produce roosters, while small and shorter ones become pullets. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that you can tell nothing about the sex of a chicken from shape, size, or weight of the egg. You can tell it only after seven or eight days of incubation of the egg.
Experiments have determined that the greater number of eggs a hen lays before being put into a breeding-pen, the larger will be the proportion of females produced from her eggs."
--------------------------
Journal of horticulture and practical gardening.
Publisher: London. Volume 12 ( 1867 )
POULTRY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE.

BREEDING GAME FOWLS. The following observations will apply to almost all the different sorts of poultry in breeding for stock.
" The eggs for hatching must be chosen with great care from the most pointed-shaped, smoothest-shelled, freshest-laid, and finest eggs, or eggs rather large or above the middle size, which are the best. The first clutches of eggs laid after moulting, if laid at the proper season, are the best for hatching; the second clutches are also good, but the third and following clutches are worse.
Eleven or twelve eggs should go to each sitting and never more, as a hen cannot brood or bring up more than twelve chickens properly to afford them proper warmth, the brood hens full grown of course.
( Ok, I saw the following tidbit more than once in poultry lit. Anyone know if the following is accurate ? Karen )The sex of eggs, it is said, may be easily ascertained by holding the egg, large end uppermost, to a lighted candle, or to bright sunlight through a chink in a darkish place, when if the air-bladder at the large end of the egg is at the top of the large end the chick is a male, and if at the side of the large end it is a female. In eggs of the same hen the more pointed are males, and the more equal-ended females ; but different hens lay different-shaped eggs, the ovarium being of a different shape.
No Game hens should hatch-out chickens before the 21st of March, for fear of cold weather, nor after May, as too late in the year.
Long-shaped eggs are bad, so are too short eggs; small eggs are bad, so are rough-shelled eggs; equal-ended large eggs are also bad, being often double-yolked, and therefore unproductive. Eggs laid after a day's interval are the best for hatching, and all eggs should be marked and dated as soon as laid. The first eggs of each clutch should be rejected as too small, as also those laid after the hen begins to cluck or want to sit, as she then refuses the cock and is becoming unfruitful."

Best,
Karen\

Hum, apparently air cell placement has nothing to do with figuring out chick sex. This excerpt from the Lippincott " Poultry Production"
cite above on page 155:
" The position of the air cell during incubation, though not so widely preached, is equally unreliable as a means of prejudging sex. It has been maintained that when the air cell develops so that the long axis of the egg passes through the approximate centre of the air space the sex of the developing embryo is male. When the long axis is very much eccentric and the cell extends down the side of the egg the sex of the embryo is said to be female. The author had occasion to examine, under the direction of Prof. H. C. Pierce, a good many hundred eggs for the purpose of observing the relative numbers of each sex hatched from eggs containing each type of air cell. Unfortunately the detailed data have not been preserved, but the sex of the resulting chicks in each case was represented in nearly equal numbers."

 

[slordaz]

"Round" and "Pointy" are pretty subjective, it would be better if you could chart the actual ratios of length to width and then compare. I could possibly try to put a chart together for you, but so far the data seems to be all over the place without much in common.

my eggs you can see the difference at each end of the shape spectrum on that easily, but still there are some that are in a gray area too. will try and get picks before I put next hatch in the incubator and next one I will do will try to pick female as this one is good for a control for me

 

[beccasev]

1. How many eggs to choose from for this incubation? So many eggs. I collected only the roundiest (what my friend and I called them) for 2 weeks from 15 layers.

2. How many eggs set based on "female profile? 36

3. How many eggs survived to day 18? My friend was the hatcher. Not sure.
4. How many chicks hatched? Not sure.

5. Percentage of pullets in this hatch? I took 12 chicks picked at random at 3 days old. Ended up with 4 males.

6. Hatch date? July 2015

7. Comments: my friend and I did this as a joke after I told her about it last summer. I picked 3 dozen of the roundest eggs I could find. She hatched them out. Barnyard mix of layers. We had 3 Easter eggers eggs. One hatched. It was a boy. They weren't particularly round.

 

[aart]

Quote: It appears some folks are stating gender at hatch without indicating how they determine gender.