Several years ago, on the hatching and raising page, people put in for nearly a year, how many eggs they sat, and how many hatched. One added it to the totals above, and divided. At first as all statistics do, the percentages varied wildly, but over time, they began to average and there became much smaller swings.
It came very close to a 50% hatch rate. If you have been hatching eggs long, most of us have had a poor hatch or two, and sometimes a perfect 100% hatch. I have found that hatching smaller hatches actually gives me more chicks, but any hatch above 50% I consider a win. This was true under broody's or incubators.
All I am saying, while not perfect, one could easily set up a test to see if the shape was indicative as to the sex of the bird.
As a side note, even with the 50/50% that is should be, we have all known families were it did not follow the punnet square of probability. Ken had a cow that he liked very much, and she raised beautiful heifer calves, and he kept every one of them, as they too were good cows. She did not have a bull calf until her 10th calf.
It is a crazy hobby. If you are going to go dual purpose, eggs and meat, I do recommend upgrading to a higher quality rooster, getting a new one every two years. It does make quite a difference in the quality of meat. And getting a drill mounted plucker, it makes harvesting the birds so much easier!
Mrs K
