Sexing eggs!

[KirstieJG]

To everyone who has an opinion on this, can I ask if you have ever tried this yourself or are you just relying on hearsay and the fact that commercial hatcheries dont use this?

The thing about industry is that sometimes innovation, experiment and god forbid, science, can move things on quicker than being stuck in ones ways. Now, I have no idea and no opinion on whether this works or not and maybe its just because i'm english and curious, but I would like to see what happens. And if commercial hatcheries dont use this, thats fine, they can do what they like and I dont expect they care about the outcome to this little experiment either.


So I have measured and labelled my eggs, a difference of more than 0.6mm between the widest point of the egg and 1 cm below the top of the egg are labelled as boys. the rest are girls. This makes a 50/50 split.

I can put them in separate brooders. I am not going to test the ducks, just the chickens. here are some photos:




You would be surprised, the long one that looks quite pointy is actually in the girl category because of the narrowness of the egg.

 

[lazy gardener]

I did a similar hatch, and those chicks are now 2 weeks old. I set only the round eggs. Will be posting gender results when the chicks declare themselves! I believe there is one other BYC person who is playing with this theory also. Or was it you who posed the question several weeks ago? My next hatch is a control group, using eggs not chosen for shape.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I get the desire to figure this out.
I get the joy of hatching different shaped egg and cataloging it.
I don't want people not to experiment.
But, would someone explain to me what the theory is behind believing the shape of an egg shell determines the sex of the embryo.

Most hens lay the same shape eggs every day. The hen determines the sex but does that mean some hens only produce pullets and some only produce cockerels?

 

[lazy gardener]

I think there are some hens who are more prone to produce one or the other. I don't have a clue what the reasoning is behind the theory. But, just as it's fun to look at a pregnant woman, and guess what gender child she's carrying, based on "how" she's carrying it, the same idea holds true for chicks and eggs. BTW, I've had a fairly good track record at guessing the gender of human babies based on "belly presentation"... Out front, shaped like a basketball = boy. Wrapped around, wide = girl. They said in the days before US that woman's intuition was 80% correct regarding guessing the gender of the child they were carrying. I was right with mine both times.

 

[KirstieJG]

Wow,

Well I have had seven hatch so far, another two pipping and chirping so this will be by far my most successful hatch thus far. Interestingly, i have already noticed a pattern:

When I measured the eggs, I labelled 7 girls and 4 boys, The first 5 hatched were all girls (labelled). So there could also be a another theory to test about speed of hatching lol!

 

[KirstieJG]

I think there are some hens who are more prone to produce one or the other. I don't have a clue what the reasoning is behind the theory. But, just as it's fun to look at a pregnant woman, and guess what gender child she's carrying, based on "how" she's carrying it, the same idea holds true for chicks and eggs. BTW, I've had a fairly good track record at guessing the gender of human babies based on "belly presentation"... Out front, shaped like a basketball = boy. Wrapped around, wide = girl. They said in the days before US that woman's intuition was 80% correct regarding guessing the gender of the child they were carrying. I was right with mine both times.

I had four and was right everytime too! Even the boy girl twins ;-) I was like a basket ball in front with my eldest, a son and just piled on the weight all over with my next, a daughter AND the third time, I wrote in my diary when I was 10 weeks pregnant that I thought it may be twins. No twins in the family and no more sickness etc than usual. Just a weird idea possibly based on the fact that my belly was already starting to protrude a little (I was skinny in those days) but it was pregnancy number three so maybe a little protrusion was to be expected anyway.

Its just as much fun with eggs

 

[KirstieJG]

Okay, well, its early days but its looking good, of the ones that i measured as female, only one is looking like a definite cockerel. interestingly a couple of the boys ones seem to be looking less like cockerels. I tried to take some photos but they are too quick!

I will get proper numbers when I am sure about sex.

 

[lazy gardener]

My first hatch appears to be very heavy on pullets as well. That is, with the exception of the Dominique eggs which included some pointy ones. All of the Dom chicks are sex linked. However, in the busyness of the hatch, I failed to correlate the males/females with the eggs which were labeled with gender prediction. That'll be a project for next time. I have yet to get final gender count, b/c more than 1/2 of that clutch of chicks went to a friend. However, when I visited them a few weeks ago, it looked like they had a LOT of pullets, except for the male EE/Dom BSL that I gave them.

 

[goodb]

still following

 

[KirstieJG]

Yes, I have given four to a friend, three of which I had labelled as cockerels but she doesnt believe me so was prepared to risk it! I think she may be regretting that now as they are looking like my predictions were correct for two of her boys. Two to another friend that I had labelled as one of each but they are both looking like females at the moment. That would mean that out of the ten eggs I hatched successfully, 8 were female.

We will wait and see what they actually are .....