There is a study in sexing eggs by shape.

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crb1487

crb1487

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Mar 19, 2015
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The study results can be read at the link below. However, just a warning... It gets very technical and may make your eyes roll to the back of your head.

In short, the results say, "Yes. You can determine chicken sexes by shape" with some 80ish percent accuracy.

Imagine the thousands of culled male chick's that could gave been saved from their terrible end if this method was used more and used correctly.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ar...eral, eggs with a,index will be female chicks.
 
In short, the results say, "Yes. You can determine chicken sexes by shape" with some 80ish percent accuracy.
Sad Family Time GIF by Lifetime
 
I don't think there's a for sure way to tell by a shape of an egg if it will be male or female. The size of eggs laid day to day will vary, thus the results can not be 100% accurate. Have you tried that hatch method before?
 
I read in a book published in the 1920s in which a chicken farmer details a method she claimed would produce 98% the desired sex by sorting eggs based on size, shape, and orientation of the air sac. She claimed that in larger eggs with a perpendicular air sac produced cockerels and medium eggs with an air sac positioned off center, in such a way that it can only be viewed from one side of the egg, would produce pullets. Most eggs fall somewhere in the middle and would be sent to market.
 
I saw a video where the lady said in her flock she has found the rounded end indicates girl, or a pointed end indicates boys. She said she was told the method by an old poultry farmer, but I don't know how true. I guess it's something that in the future I could test (if I ever had the space) but for now, hoping the one I'm currently hatching will be a girl to give me the complere half dozen.
 
TeresaW said:
I wonder about predicting quail eggs.
Click to expand...
It probably doesn't work, but it could be easy enough to test:

Sort the eggs by shape
Put them in three incubators (long eggs, round eggs, in-between eggs)
Raise the quail chicks in three separate brooders, or identify them with legbands, or any other way that you can be sure of which ones came from which group.
When they are old enough to sex accurately, figure out the results (and please share them with the rest of us!) You could see how many eggs hatched vs. didn't hatch of each shape, and how many males vs. females were in each group.

The reason that sexing by shape will generally not work:
The sex of the chick is determined by a cell from the mother, which is already on the yolk before the rest of the egg is formed. But the shape of the egg is determined by something about the mother's body when the shell is put on, not by that single male or female cell on the yolk inside the white and the membrane.
This applies to any kind of bird, not just quail or just chickens.
Fertile vs. infertile eggs do not have different shapes either.

But if someone finds it fun to test, I would certainly like to know what results they get.
 
NatJ said:
It probably doesn't work, but it could be easy enough to test:

Sort the eggs by shape
Put them in three incubators (long eggs, round eggs, in-between eggs)
Raise the quail chicks in three separate brooders, or identify them with legbands, or any other way that you can be sure of which ones came from which group.
When they are old enough to sex accurately, figure out the results (and please share them with the rest of us!) You could see how many eggs hatched vs. didn't hatch of each shape, and how many males vs. females were in each group.

The reason that sexing by shape will generally not work:
The sex of the chick is determined by a cell from the mother, which is already on the yolk before the rest of the egg is formed. But the shape of the egg is determined by something about the mother's body when the shell is put on, not by that single male or female cell on the yolk inside the white and the membrane.
This applies to any kind of bird, not just quail or just chickens.
Fertile vs. infertile eggs do not have different shapes either.

But if someone finds it fun to test, I would certainly like to know what results they get.
Click to expand...
I would love to do some testing, but my first ever incubator is still on its way.
 

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