Sexing eggs!

[KirstieJG]

This is just for fun.

I am on my third incubation this spring. I have had a time of it as this is the first year that I am hatching with an incubator. My first hatch gave me only 1 out of 17 eggs. That was a tough pill to swallow as it hit my arrogance hard; I believed that if a chicken could do it then it must be easy. Now I have had to face the sobering thought that a chicken is better at something than I am!

But, the last hatch was 3 out of four ducklings, 3 out of four bantams and 1 out of 1 buff sussex! Yippeee

They are now two weeks old and, this is the important bit, I set all non-pointy eggs. They should be, according to science, pullets.

I have no idea what they are yet gender-wise but I will announce it on here. If anyone else also wants to set non-pointy eggs and tell me what they got, I would love to hear about it.

The key is not the roundness or length of the egg but the least difference in the circumference at each end of the egg. see photo diagram.


Sorry its sideways but basically, in the picture egg A would be a roo and the others pullets.


Who is with me in this egg-speriment?

 

[WalnutHill]

Well, it won't work with turkeys as they are all shaped like A!

 

[KirstieJG]

I dont know about turkeys and to be honest I dont know if its valid for duck eggs either. I'm basing my surmise on this study:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1516-635X2013000300006&script=sci_arttext

I think you may need to cut and paste this into your browser to get it to work but if it doesnt, let me know and i'll try something else.

There was a discussion about this on another post and it got me wondering so I thought that i would try it if i got the opportunity and this last hatch, I did. I picked out the most even eggs from a whole bunch and thought I would see what happened. The study is with chicken eggs though.

 

[goodb]

Interesting...

 

[rainbowhatchery]

urban legend, not possible. Biologically the shape of the egg has nothing to do with the sex of the chick.

 

[KirstieJG]

Dont be so quick to jump on the urban myth wagon please! I posted a link to a scientific study but i'd like to see what happens in 'real' life.

 

[rainbowhatchery]

Im not ruling it out 100% Im just saying the shape of the egg is created when the hen pushes it out because its still soft like dough, depending on how the push it out determines the shape as it hardens, the egg itself is already fertilized when that happens so I dont see how the two can be connected but I will leave the door open 1% lol.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

That would mean that some of my hens that always lay round eggs and those that always lay pointy eggs would always have the same sex offspring.

 

[rainbowhatchery]

thats a good point as well that would lead me to think is a myth. I just think if there was any truth to it the big dollar hatcheries would have put alot of time into it as being able to sex an egg would save them millions.

 

[scflock]

That would mean that some of my hens that always lay round eggs and those that always lay pointy eggs would always have the same sex offspring.

And all of my Polish will only lay roosters. Dang