kelseyk
Free Ranging
So there are all kinds of old wives tales on how to tell the sex of a chicken, one of them being the ring or nail test. For this test you tie a metal ring or nail to the end of a string and dangle it above the chick (or duckling, turkey, etc) and wait for it to either move in a straight line or in a circle. The site I found and the way I have done it before says if it goes in a circle it is a male and if it goes in a line it is a female, although there are many sites out there that say the opposite.
Now I mentioned above that I have tried this before. When I did it on the first 9 chicks I ever had at age 3 weeks, it guessed them all right. However, when I tried it on day old straight run chicks at the farm store (hoping to get pullets)....it was really inaccurate ending up with 3 roosters out of 6 chicks. But this got me thinking the other day, why was it so inaccurate on the day old chicks. So I did a mini experiment. My theory was that the chick that I was holding just couldn't produce enough physical magnetism to control the metal item on the string and that the metal item was actually picking up my personal physical magnetism. My experiment: to hold a baby chick in my hand and perform the test and then put the baby chick in a plastic cup and re perform the test. To my surprise, my metal washer that I was using, moved in a line while I was holding the chick (female) but then moved in a circle (male) when I put the same chick into a plastic cup and re did the test. I did the same test on more of my 4 day old chicks and found some that tested a line both times. So from that test, I have concluded that if this test actually works, that a persons personal physical magnetism can override the chicks physical magnetism.
Then....my daughter told me I should try the test on unhatched eggs. So I did. And to my surprise, the metal object moved in either a circle or a line. I had 1 egg that was a late quitter, so I tried the test on that egg as well....and the metal object did not move at all.
So, just for fun, I have decided to do a little experiment. I am going to number my eggs and perform the test on each one of them on day 14. I will write either an M or F on the egg as well as my spreadsheet. I will then divide the eggs in my hatcher M on one side of a barrier and F on the other side (I'll try to contain each egg individually if I can as well). Once the chicks hatch and are dried off I will use rubber leg bands to mark each chick for identification and then perform the test at 1 day old and 3 weeks and write down the results. Then we will see what they end up actually being and see how accurate this test can be!
I'm excited to see what happens! Here is the spreadsheet I made up to track it all.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wgv50E8N1WQhkJqXm4EgTCNFWMg9LVe09SP8oTLqcQs/edit?usp=sharing
Now I mentioned above that I have tried this before. When I did it on the first 9 chicks I ever had at age 3 weeks, it guessed them all right. However, when I tried it on day old straight run chicks at the farm store (hoping to get pullets)....it was really inaccurate ending up with 3 roosters out of 6 chicks. But this got me thinking the other day, why was it so inaccurate on the day old chicks. So I did a mini experiment. My theory was that the chick that I was holding just couldn't produce enough physical magnetism to control the metal item on the string and that the metal item was actually picking up my personal physical magnetism. My experiment: to hold a baby chick in my hand and perform the test and then put the baby chick in a plastic cup and re perform the test. To my surprise, my metal washer that I was using, moved in a line while I was holding the chick (female) but then moved in a circle (male) when I put the same chick into a plastic cup and re did the test. I did the same test on more of my 4 day old chicks and found some that tested a line both times. So from that test, I have concluded that if this test actually works, that a persons personal physical magnetism can override the chicks physical magnetism.
Then....my daughter told me I should try the test on unhatched eggs. So I did. And to my surprise, the metal object moved in either a circle or a line. I had 1 egg that was a late quitter, so I tried the test on that egg as well....and the metal object did not move at all.
So, just for fun, I have decided to do a little experiment. I am going to number my eggs and perform the test on each one of them on day 14. I will write either an M or F on the egg as well as my spreadsheet. I will then divide the eggs in my hatcher M on one side of a barrier and F on the other side (I'll try to contain each egg individually if I can as well). Once the chicks hatch and are dried off I will use rubber leg bands to mark each chick for identification and then perform the test at 1 day old and 3 weeks and write down the results. Then we will see what they end up actually being and see how accurate this test can be!
I'm excited to see what happens! Here is the spreadsheet I made up to track it all.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wgv50E8N1WQhkJqXm4EgTCNFWMg9LVe09SP8oTLqcQs/edit?usp=sharing
