TheAlrightyGina
Crowing
Hey BYCers (and random people from the internet who wandered in)!
Last year, I did a project to try to determine the sex of Silkies with greater than 50-50 success before 9 weeks of age using growth rate. The results were mixed, I believe in part because I didn't exclude chicks that arrived sick or with deformities (not gonna go with that hatchery again...ever). This year I'm going to try again, with a larger sample size (last was 16, this will be 25) and the collection of additional data that might lead to a reliable method. I'm going to outline everything here for those that would like to follow along. This project is based on the fact that chickens are sexually dimorphic, with the males at some point outgrowing the females. The hope is that I can determine at what age roughly 100% of the males will have outpaced the females in rate of growth and/or weight.
So here's my timeline and what I'll be doing:
3/25 - Chicks will be acquired, Initial (day old) weigh in
4/01 - Week 1 weigh in
4/08 - Week 2 weigh in
4/15 - Week 3 weigh in
4/22 - Week 4 weigh in
4/29 - Week 5 weigh in
5/06 - Week 6 weigh in
5/13 - Week 7 weigh in
5/20 - Week 8 weigh in
5/27 - Week 9 weigh in (last)
6/03 - Project wrap up, results revealed.
At each weigh in, I will take pictures of each bird and post them in this thread. Each time I do this, I would really really appreciate it if y'all would respond with what you think each bird's sex is. That way, y'all will basically be acting as a control for the project, attempting to sex Silkies the way that we do now (visually). I won't be revealing the data until the end so that it won't influence y'all in any way. If I write this up as an article anywhere, I'll be sure to credit anyone who participates by guessing the sex as a contributor to the project.
In addition to weighing each bird, I will also be measuring the circumference of the leg, the length of the middle toe, the width of the comb, and their natural posture in profile, documented both with pictures and measures being stored in an excel file. I'm doing this as a back up, in case growth rate fails to beat guessing as a method for determining the sex, in the hope that we can find something that does.
I'm still debating on whether I will wait until crow/lay to confirm the sex or if I'll pay for DNA testing. Perhaps if I can find a group discount, lol, I'll go for the latter. Any suggestions on that would be appreciated.
If anyone else wants to do this project, at the same time or after, that would be awesome, as replication is the key to good science.
Last year, I did a project to try to determine the sex of Silkies with greater than 50-50 success before 9 weeks of age using growth rate. The results were mixed, I believe in part because I didn't exclude chicks that arrived sick or with deformities (not gonna go with that hatchery again...ever). This year I'm going to try again, with a larger sample size (last was 16, this will be 25) and the collection of additional data that might lead to a reliable method. I'm going to outline everything here for those that would like to follow along. This project is based on the fact that chickens are sexually dimorphic, with the males at some point outgrowing the females. The hope is that I can determine at what age roughly 100% of the males will have outpaced the females in rate of growth and/or weight.
So here's my timeline and what I'll be doing:
3/25 - Chicks will be acquired, Initial (day old) weigh in
4/01 - Week 1 weigh in
4/08 - Week 2 weigh in
4/15 - Week 3 weigh in
4/22 - Week 4 weigh in
4/29 - Week 5 weigh in
5/06 - Week 6 weigh in
5/13 - Week 7 weigh in
5/20 - Week 8 weigh in
5/27 - Week 9 weigh in (last)
6/03 - Project wrap up, results revealed.
At each weigh in, I will take pictures of each bird and post them in this thread. Each time I do this, I would really really appreciate it if y'all would respond with what you think each bird's sex is. That way, y'all will basically be acting as a control for the project, attempting to sex Silkies the way that we do now (visually). I won't be revealing the data until the end so that it won't influence y'all in any way. If I write this up as an article anywhere, I'll be sure to credit anyone who participates by guessing the sex as a contributor to the project.
In addition to weighing each bird, I will also be measuring the circumference of the leg, the length of the middle toe, the width of the comb, and their natural posture in profile, documented both with pictures and measures being stored in an excel file. I'm doing this as a back up, in case growth rate fails to beat guessing as a method for determining the sex, in the hope that we can find something that does.
I'm still debating on whether I will wait until crow/lay to confirm the sex or if I'll pay for DNA testing. Perhaps if I can find a group discount, lol, I'll go for the latter. Any suggestions on that would be appreciated.
If anyone else wants to do this project, at the same time or after, that would be awesome, as replication is the key to good science.
