Marking eggs to track hatchling.

[ManOverBoard]

What makes you think this egg contains a male chick?

I can't remember where we heard it, but it's a very pointed egg. I believe it's an old wives tale with some but not complete accuracy.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I can't remember where we heard it, but it's a very pointed egg. I believe it's an old wives tale with some but not complete accuracy.

Ah, yes, I've heard this "old tale" as well. When it hatches, and later, when it crows, please report back and let us know if it was indeed a male, would you?

 

[NatJ]

I can't remember where we heard it, but it's a very pointed egg. I believe it's an old wives tale with some but not complete accuracy.

The one time I tracked a few chicks by which shape egg they came from, I got 2 males and 2 females from the 4 eggs that were long and pointy.

Based on that as well as other people's experience, I would say it is no more accurate than random guessing. Which would give you a 50/50 chance of getting a male from that egg.

Eggshell shape is a certain amount inherited. If your pointy egg does produce a cockerel, and you use him for breeding, his daughters will be more likely to lay pointy eggs. If you make a point of hatching mostly pointy eggs, or mostly round eggs, over time you will have a flock that lays more eggs of one shape and less of the other shape, but they will not produce more male or more female chicks than usual.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

The one time I tracked a few chicks by which shape egg they came from, I got 2 males and 2 females from the 4 eggs that were long and pointy.

Based on that as well as other people's experience, I would say it is no more accurate than random guessing. Which would give you a 50/50 chance of getting a male from that egg.

Eggshell shape is a certain amount inherited. If your pointy egg does produce a cockerel, and you use him for breeding, his daughters will be more likely to lay pointy eggs. If you make a point of hatching mostly pointy eggs, or mostly round eggs, over time you will have a flock that lays more eggs of one shape and less of the other shape, but they will not produce more male or more female chicks than usual.

Science!

 

[RubelliteRose]

Eggshell shape is a certain amount inherited.

Yes, this! The only 2 hens that I have who lay long pointed eggs are mother and daughter.

 

[ManOverBoard]

Ah, yes, I've heard this "old tale" as well. When it hatches, and later, when it crows, please report back and let us know if it was indeed a male, would you?

I will, I love the idea of testing this out properly. I agree with everyone else there must be some science to it, but I also think that 'old tales' often come from some piece of experiential truth. Perhaps the originator had a hen that they used for breeding that laid pointy eggs that were predominantly male, anyone know if it's the hens dna or roos that determines sex or if it's more like gators whos hatchlings genders are affected by temperature?
I wonder if we can get enough of us to test this to get some more data points than just a handful of chicks at a time

 

[Ridgerunner]

My question is how to mark that chick and any others we want assuming we see the chick that leaves that egg.
With adults we give them bracelets, but chicks?

I may be too late to the party but you can use food dye. Some hatcheries will mark their chicks with food dye if you ask them to identify certain ones.

Food dye markings should last a while, but the chicks will go through juvenile molts so you need to keep checking and refreshing. Similar to the idea of using different color bands on different legs or different combinations of colors on different legs to give you many combinations you can use different colors on different body parts. A yellow dot on the head is one chick. A green dot on the head is another. A yellow on the right shoulder is another. A green dot on the right drumstick is another. A yellow on the head and a green on the left drumstick is another. Lots of combinations.

Most chicks have 4 toenails on each leg, some have 5. A different color of toenail polish on different toes give you a huge range of possible combinations. Check often and renew as you need to.

I will, I love the idea of testing this out properly. I agree with everyone else there must be some science to it, but I also think that 'old tales' often come from some piece of experiential truth.

I find it interesting that one of the Greek philosophers (I think Aristotle but I'm not sure) though that males came from round eggs and girls from the pointy ones. Opposite to what some believe today.

I considered testing that one time. After sorting my eggs about 1/4 were pointy, 1/4 were round, and the other half were inconclusive. The way I'd have tested it would have been to only hatch the pointed ones (I wanted males to butcher) so there was no confusion in which ones were which eggs, but I wanted more chicks than I had pointy eggs so I didn't test it. I did not expect that many to be inconclusive.

 

[NatJ]

anyone know if it's the hens dna or roos that determines sex or if it's more like gators whos hatchlings genders are affected by temperature?

In chickens, males have sex chromosomes ZZ. Females have sex chromosomes ZW. That means the hen determines the sex of the chick by whether she gives a Z or a W chromosome. The rooster gives a Z to all of them.

That is useful if you want to breed sexlink chicks:

You use a rooster with a recessive trait on the Z chromsome. Because it's recessive, he only shows the trait if he has it on both Z chromsomes, so you can tell he has the right genes just by looking at him. And you use a hen with the dominant trait on her Z chromosome (but nothing on her W chromsome.) Because she's got just one Z chromosome, you know she cannot be carrying a recessive trait, so just like the rooster, you can tell by looking that the hen has the right genes.

When you cross such a rooster and hen, the rooster gives a Z chromsome with the recessive trait to all his chicks. The hen gives the dominant trait to her sons, which they show because it is dominant. The hen gives a W chromsome to her daughters, so they show the recessive trait they inherited from their father. This means the male chicks and female chicks can be sorted by sex, just by sorting the different colors.

Common sex-linked traits include:
gold (recessive) and silver (dominant)
chocolate (recessive) and not-chocolate (dominant)
not-barred (recessive) and barred (dominant)

The barring gene can also be used to make auto-sexing chicken breeds, because it shows a dose effect. A hen with just one Z chromosome will have just one barring gene. That makes white bars on her feathers. A rooster with two Z chromosomes can have two barring genes. That makes more white in the barring of his feathers, and makes the chick down a lighter color as well. Cream Legbars and Bielefelders are known for being sexable this way, and it also works on Barred Rocks, Cuckoo Marans, and some other breeds. Sometimes there are confusing chicks (female a bit lighter than normal? male a bit darker than normal?), but breeding from just the most obvious chicks will generally cause future generations to be easier to sex.

I find it interesting that one of the Greek philosophers (I think Aristotle but I'm not sure) thought that males came from round eggs and girls from the pointy ones. Opposite to what some believe today.

I dont know if Aristotle said it too, but Pliny the Elder definitely did in the first century.
The work is Natural History, Volume 2, Book 10, Chapter 74 "The various kinds of eggs, and their nature." You can find an English translation here on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60230

I considered testing that one time. After sorting my eggs about 1/4 were pointy, 1/4 were round, and the other half were inconclusive. The way I'd have tested it would have been to only hatch the pointed ones (I wanted males to butcher) so there was no confusion in which ones were which eggs, but I wanted more chicks than I had pointy eggs so I didn't test it. I did not expect that many to be inconclusive.

Mesh bags or baskets, plus legbands or food coloring, works.
Or using several incubators and several brooders.

 

[Toothpick]

Where do you buy fertile eggs from that ship to your door?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I dont know if Aristotle said it too, but Pliny the Elder definitely did in the first century.
The work is Natural History, Volume 2, Book 10, Chapter 74 "The various kinds of eggs, and their nature." You can find an English translation here on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60230

Thank you. I could not remember which philosopher, just that it has been around for centuries and has changed. Which tells me something about how accurate it is.