My friend Gwendolyn, who does not make things up, swears that this woman who has kept chickens for 40 years sexes hers by the shape of the eggs and swears it works, taught her mom to do it, and her mom swears it works.

She claims the "normally" shaped eggs, when fertile, will turn into hens and those odd oblong ones we get turn into roosters. The woman said when she had a broody hen, she would take all the oblong ones out to eat and leave the "normal" ones and wouldn't get roosters that way, unless of course she wanted a rooster.

So I must admit I am a sucker. I am going to try it this summer and I will let you know if it is hooey or not, which I suspect it is, except my friend is such an honest and sincere person.... has anyone ever heard of this or tried it ever?

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), February 06, 2002

Answers

Yes my grandmother used to do it all the time, but we never learned. Good luck. Ralph.

-- Ralph (rroces1@yahoo.com), February 06, 2002.

My neighbor (from Germany) also told me this. She and her family lived in S. Africa for a decade and were taught this "trick" by the native villagers. We hatched out (3) big chicken eggs under one of our banties to test her theory, two obviously oblong, one "normal". Results: (2) roosters, (1) hen!

I do think there is something to this. When we are ready for a batch of broilers, I'm going to start saving all my oblongs and see if we do, indeed, get all roosters.

-- Cheers, Renee M.

-- Renee Martin (icehorse@altelco.net), February 07, 2002.

Post this observation on(yes, here it comes again! LOL) www.poultryconnection.com and see what some of the commercial raisers of chickens have to say. I think it would be fun to see if they have any ideas or experiences re this. Hope you will let us know. I raise so few, and ducks at that, that it wouldn't be statistically important. Fun observation. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), February 07, 2002.

We heard the same thing last year and tried the method on three broody hens. all combined they hatched 17 chicks, two were roosters! few weeks later a bantam that i didn't even know was sitting came off the nest with five chicks. four roosters and one hen! So it worked for us and i know we'll try it again this spring and see if it was a fluke or not!

-- Susan (dsowen@tds.net), February 08, 2002.

If this really worked, don't you think the commercial hatcheries would use it? I've heard this claimed for years, and even tried it, to no avail. Perhaps if you called Miss Cleo??......

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), February 09, 2002.