The Great SI (Shape index) experiment

[oregonkat]

Nein. B/C if she had such accuracy, wouldn't she only have hatched a single cockerel every year? Your question is an interesting one, which most likely does not have an answer and would be the subject of an other study. It is the hen who determines the gender of the egg. And, some hens are more likely to produce pullets, while some other hens are more likely to produce cockerels. So, perhaps those hens who produce cockerels lay pointy eggs??? So, if a flock owner happens to notice a particular hen who seems to produce more pullets, that flock owner SHOULD make every effort to hatch that hen's eggs, and use her daughters for future breeders.

Then, there is the whole temperature issue. Incubation temp can be tweaked to favor production of pullets. However, when tweaking temp, all that is really happening is that the weaker male embryos are being killed off in early development. So, the hatch rate goes down, but pullet % goes up. Some flock owners also note that pullet to cockerel ratio changes according to the temperature when eggs are collected.

OK, so my last hatch in my then brand new Hovabator with calibrated independent hygrometer and thermometer x3 including the one that comes with the unit, kept at 99.3 to 100 degs. 30 - 40 % hum. till lock down then upped to.... I dont remember. 12 eggs incubated 9 hatched 8 freaking roosters and one absolutely beautiful hen!! I did not take any notice of the shape of the eggs but they were BCM eggs which tend to be on the rounder end of things. Oh, and these were shipped eggs which could also play a part I suppose. Now, at this present moment, and I realize that it is a little late, I have 28 eggs in my bator. It was 34 but at first candle I identified 6 unfertilized. I would like to make note of the shapes, and yes they are all numbered to see who pops out. Interested? I am also doing another experiment with these eggs, which was to do the hydrogen peroxide spray prior to incubation test. There is a thread about this somewhere on here, anyway supposed to increase hatch..... who knows. All other eggs in the bator look great.

 

[lazy gardener]

Would love to see a study regarding H2O2.

 

[oregonkat]

Would love to see a study regarding H2O2.

P.S. if my Russian grandmama were here, she would throw a shoe at you and tell you 'Of course I only grow vone rooster I know vitch egg is vitch'

 

[lazy gardener]

I love your Russian Grandmama!!!

 

[Nksg75]

Poor babies! Poor you too! They do all look the same with the white spot on their backs like the boy in the photo. On the webpage the pullet chick doesn't seem to have that spot. You will try again won't you?

Thanks, and yes absolutely I will try again!! I just ordered more olive and CCL eggs from a eBay. This time they are much closer, however the olive eggs will not be autosexing, so if they hatch I will have to wait on them.

 

[Nksg75]

I did this the past several hatching seasons. Prior ratios with randomly selected eggs resulted in 60% cockerels, 40% pullets. 3 subsequent hatches, doing the egg shape selection resulted in 2 bator hatches, and 1 broody hatch that were 40% cockerels and 60% pullets. The following shape selected 2 hatches resulted in 50% each.

I did try to account for hens which tended to lay pointed vs round eggs. When I could color and shape id eggs from a specific hen, I'd do a comparison of a week's worth of her eggs and choose HER roundest ones. But, now that my flock size is larger, I do not have that much ability to match eggs to specific hens.

I'll be watching to see what your results are. Please tag me when the results are in!

I sure will. Now how do I tag someone?
I am not familiar with this?

 

[Nksg75]

Poor babies! Poor you too! They do all look the same with the white spot on their backs like the boy in the photo. On the webpage the pullet chick doesn't seem to have that spot. You will try again won't you?

Also on the photo, the pullets back is not visible. I am going to email him, and ask him if he can tell what sex they are.

 

[Kusanar]

I sure will. Now how do I tag someone?
I am not familiar with this?

To tag, you type @ and then their name with no spaces between the @ and the name @Nksg75 and a drop down starts filling in, once you see the name you want, click it in the drop down and it will finish the tag.

 

[coloradowildflower]

Fascinating. Thanks for the info.

 

[Nksg75]

Ok, so I got word from Papa's poultry. It seems that both chicks 3 & 5 looked to be boys to him.i did not include the other chick, because it looked way to gross, and frankly I was a little ashamed to ask him to do this for me!!