Sexing eggs and wives tales? 🤔 pure bred hens crossed with buff Orpington rooster results? 🤔 Incubator brand review? 🤔 I got some answers! 😆

[Rapp7]

I decided to try to hatch my own chickens and because I put a lot of factors into this hatch and I feel I could help others with questions concerning a hatch. I am by no means suggesting I’m a pro now BUT I went into this a complete newbie! Prior to incubation I researched sexing eggs, sex link breeding, feather sexing, and cross breed characteristics. I bred my BUFF ORPINGTON ROOSTER with the following hen breeds:
Rhode Island Red (2) fertile eggs, Golden laced Wyandotte (4) fertile eggs, black australorp (1) fertile egg, barred rock (1) fertile egg, Easter egger (1) fertile egg.
First, let’s talk about wives tales. Farmers, like us, didn’t want to be overrun with roosters and even though their tricks and trades aren’t 100 foul proof, keep in mind nothing in this world is. (1) Egg shape is a factor used in tossing out possible roo hatch. This is the bullet looking egg (pointy end) vs a more rounded shape egg. Of my 9 eggs I only place ONE POINTY (bullet looking) egg into the incubator. Then, I did the second experiment “wives tale” a needle tied to thread.(2) Dangling the needle over the egg and make sure it is still. I waited for any type of movement and sure enough it swayed on its own after a few seconds. Side to side = boy Circle = girl. 8/9 eggs circles. Yes! the more pointier egg moved side to side. Each egg was numbered and marked with an R for round (circle) S for side to side.
Incubator: I first purchased a sailnova from Amazon. Knowing nothing about incubators, I am warning others now to steer clear of any cheap ones out there and especially this brand. The incubator died in the middle of the night after 8 days of use. We immediately got a Nuture right 360 from local TSC store and while it was a little on the pricey side it has worked like a champ! The eggs did survive the brief temp drop from the dead incubator. The moral of that story is to avoid China made products as much as possible it’s just not worth it.
I have one more egg still in lockdown mode, which should pop out on Monday. I will post pics as they grow, but for now I’d love to answer any questions you may have since I see so many of us are jumping in feet first on owning, raising, and growing chickens.

 

[nuthatched]

What an adorable hatch! I'm glad your eggs didn't suffer from the incubator dying.
Egg sexing is pure hogwash, an eggs shape is based on the reproductive tract of the bird and nothing else. If eggs could be sexed, hatcheries would use it to hatch almost exclusively high in demand females. But they don't.
The needle on the string is occultic, phallic bullpuckey, (btw chickens dont have those organs) easily influencedby the users wishes. However, you can cross fibromelanistic breeds to light skin breeds and developing chicks of a certain gender will be identifiable around day 10, as they'll be darker.

 

[mcdze]

'most' everything at least uses chinese made parts these days .. but you get some nicer stickers and a better warranty and manual if you spend 5X as much ... its a jungle out there for sure .. ive pumped alot of chickens through my first little chinese incubator though, so its not all bad lol ..

 

[Rapp7]

Hatch experiment update 9/ 9 eggs hatched early APRIL
Old wives tale “sexing eggs” pre hatch:
8 females 1 male
Actual hatch:
4cockerels / 5 Pullets
Conclusion: old wives tales are just that.. tales!
All are from my buff Orpington rooster, but I had a couple surprise mixed;
Easter egger and cream legbar other mixes: golden laced Wyandotte, barred rock, australorp and Rhode Island Red. It’s been a fun experience for sure.

 

[Rapp7]

Hi There
Thank you for your comment and input I appreciate it. To answer your question yes I do know which chick is from which egg I kept notes on each one, and was fortunate enough to see them all individually hatch except for the super late night one. As of right now, I’m leaning toward one Roo out of the 8 hatched “Noodle” is the name and this was the pointy egg, but the reason I’m leaning toward this being a Roo is bc the others all have tail feather sprigs and longer wings (3 layer if you will) whereas this solo one has shorter wings and a puffy butt. Will def post results!

I can't wait to see how the barred rock chick feathers out. I'm not sure your barred rock hen is purebred, that chick should have had a lot more black on it. But buff can do some strange things with black. If it is a boy, when it feathers out it will be barred. If a girl it will not be barred. You should be able to tell by the wing feathers when they come out.

Hi there! my BR hen should be a pure bred. I got her from a hatchery she’s about 2 years old now (next to the Rhode Island Red) I will definitely post pics as (hopefully she) grows, but your comment about the coloring is exactly what is throwing me off from this little one and sexing it.

 

[Rapp7]

Thank you for the reply!I agree with the scientific fact based information on egg shape development and of course the common sense theory on hatcheries using wives tales to determine sex pre-hatch to eliminate culling babies. My main reasons for posting my experience is because I see the wives tales come up a lot. out of my own curiosities, since I was hatching anyway, why not see what my results are incorporating a couple “tales.” I was worried about the string test being occultoc. It felt a little bit like an ouija thing, so to be honest I would not do that again or recommend it! With all that said my BO roo x Barred rock hen are a sex link and that egg just hatched April 7 the others hatched April 1. I just took a pic of her / him now. I keep finding inconsistencies in info on sexing this mixed chick based on color at hatch, some say born gold is female / silver is male and vice versa.

The ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago thought so too. But with the ancient Greeks the pointy ended ones were pullets and the round ones were roosters. This works as well as flipping a coin and no better.


I don't have any faith in this either but it will be interesting to see your results. Hope you post them one way or the other when you are sure of the results. Can you tell which chick came from which egg?

The ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago thought so too. But with the ancient Greeks the pointy ended ones were pullets and the round ones were roosters. This works as well as flipping a coin and no better.


I don't have any faith in this either but it will be interesting to see your results. Hope you post them one way or the other when you are sure of the results. Can you tell which chick came from which egg?

Hi There
Thank you for your comment and input I appreciate it. To answer your question yes I do know which chick is from which egg I kept notes on each one, and was fortunate enough to see them all individually hatch except for the super late night one. As of right now, I’m leaning toward one Roo out of the 8 hatched “Noodle” is the name and this was the pointy egg, but the reason I’m leaning toward this being a Roo is bc the others all have tail feather sprigs and longer wings (3 layer if you will) whereas this solo one has shorter wings and a puffy butt. Will def post results!

 

[Rapp7]

buff Orpington Roo x Barred rock Hen 48 hours old

 

[Ridgerunner]

I can't wait to see how the barred rock chick feathers out. I'm not sure your barred rock hen is purebred, that chick should have had a lot more black on it. But buff can do some strange things with black. If it is a boy, when it feathers out it will be barred. If a girl it will not be barred. You should be able to tell by the wing feathers when they come out.

 

[Rapp7]

***Baby chick updates*** 9/9 hatch:
7/7 chicks are now 3 1/2 weeks old= BUFF ORP X RIR CROSS, BUFF ORP X GOLDEN LACED CROSS, BUFF ORP X BLACK AUSTRALORP CROSS
1 baby chick is 19 days old / BO ROO x barred rock cross
1 baby chick is 15 days old / BO ROO x prairie Bluebell egger cross

2 suspected roos (1) golden lace cross & BR CROSS - pls share your thoughts on if you see any roo characteristics too!

 

[Ridgerunner]

#4, the buff orp over barred rock hen is barred. That makes him a boy. But I'd expect that cross to make a chick that was pretty much black, not sure your adults are actually pure bred.

Still, as long as the father is not barred and the hen is barred that is a boy.