Silkie Sexing Project 2.0

[TheAlrightyGina]

*looks at provided reference*

'One important point for you to remember: "do the experiment" is step 9, not step 1.'

uh oh

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

I kid. I'm going down the list and I think I set things up pretty well considering I didn't have this handy dandy reference until now. Gonna come back at it with fresh eyes tomorrow but I'm honestly excited to see how much merit this little project of mine has. It's nice to have info I can use to 'temper' the experiment.

 

[Chickeria]

So cute! I'm gonna take pullet this time!

x 2

 

[Chickeria]

Any guesses for this cutie? Sent DNA test off on Monday.

So cute! I'm gonna take pullet this time!

x 2
Very cute baby!

 

[Krugerrand]

It's hard to make out the comb but I'm actually gonna guess cockerel! One of us will be right XD

I sure hope she turns out pullet. I'm not allowed roosters where I live.

 

[Krugerrand]

How have the measurements been turning out so far? weighing/ leg circumference / middle toe length ... have you see about 50% of the group separating themselves at all yet?

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

How have the measurements been turning out so far? weighing/ leg circumference / middle toe length ... have you see about 50% of the group separating themselves at all yet?

As of now things are breaking down like this, but I might change my criteria after I get through reading the Handbook of Biological Statistics:

By growth rate - 20% (5 chicks)
By weight alone - 16% (4 chicks)
By toe length - 4% (1 chick)
By comb width - 36% (9 chicks)
By leg circumference - 20% (5 chicks)

Keep in mind that growth rate is the main part of my experiment. The others I'm doing to see if they get better or worse results, since they are generally considered to be ways to distinguish cockerels from pullets. It's going to be very interesting to see if those things hold true at all by the end of the project.

I set this to 9 weeks because that's both the commonly accepted time that Silkie keepers claim to be able to predict the sex of their birds by 50%, and that's when that study I referred to earlier (about the Leghorns) showed the greatest difference between the mean weights of the sexes.

 

[charlotte-and-the-bees]

While we're waiting for the next batch, anyone can feel free to keep their gender identifying skills sharp with my like-aged silkie!
View attachment 2628905

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I’m guessing pullet here! Looks a lot like my hen at that age.

 

[24Elsinore]

I kid. I'm going down the list and I think I set things up pretty well considering I didn't have this handy dandy reference until now. Gonna come back at it with fresh eyes tomorrow but I'm honestly excited to see how much merit this little project of mine has. It's nice to have info I can use to 'temper' the experiment.

Don't beat yourself up about it. Pilot studies are very common in any research, and that is essentially what you are doing. What you are doing right now will still be informative and interesting, and in the end would tell you if it is worth putting in the further effort. Steps 1 through 8 from the handbook can be somewhat intensive in themselves, especially if you don't have lots and lots of experience on the subject.

Quite a few years back I did a little at home experiment with mice while I was living in a farmhouse that mice had a lot of opportunity for ingress. I didn't like using lethal mousetraps because of the mess they made so I wanted to see how effective just letting them go outside was. I made a bunch of ranges that I would release mice at, and then see if I caught them again and when. To tag them I marked underneath their tails at the base with permanent marker. The data I started to record quickly made me glad I didn't put a whole ton of effort into the upfront part, because my recaptures were showing me that there was not going to be any statistical significance from my ranges. Mice from all ranges (farthest being about 3/4 of a mile from the house) were being recaptured over and over again, often the very next night. However, just because the study isn't ground breaking doesn't mean it isn't informative. The data sure showed that capturing a mouse caught in the house and relocating it is a fruitless effort (the literature more or less indicates your average deer mouse can travel up to 2 miles to make it back to where it was caught).

So don't think for a second that what you are doing is fruitless. I'd start with a good set of descriptive statistics. The average rate of growth between the males and females compared to the standard deviation will be good to look at because it will show the variation in growth rates. If the variation in growth rates between males and females overlap too much, it would make it hard to sex them accurately. If the variation in growth rates do not overlap that much, then you might want to start looking at doing a little more research into the statistical tests you would want to perform on it. On top of what I just said, you have several nominal variables that you can perform descriptive statistics on to see if one of those appear to be a better variable that might differentiate the pullets and cockerels. Just keep recording your data and you will learn something!

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

The average rate of growth between the males and females compared to the standard deviation will be good to look at because it will show the variation in growth rates.

That's actually exactly what I'm doing for the main part of the project, so it's nice to know I'm on the right track! We'll see how things shake out. Thanks again for pointing me towards such a fantastic resource. Some of it is a bit over my head at the moment but I'm muddling through well enough.