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How to Determine a Chick's Gender Before It Hatches

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No surefire scientific method allows your average backyard chicken breeder to reliably determine the gender of chicks before the egg hatches; however, that has certainly not stopped chicken owners from trying to do so. An assortment of egg characteristics can help you guess the gender of an egg. Being able to accurately predict the gender of a chick by examining the egg takes a lot of experience and a fair amount of luck. It is worthwhile to attempt to guess the gender of your eggs because hatching a batch of laying hens is more profitable than hatching roosters.

Step 1

Attach a needle to a string and dangle it over the egg for a minute or two. The needle is supposed to move in a circular motion for a pullet, or young female hen, and in a back-and-forth motion for cockerels, or young male roosters.

Step 2

Examine the shape of the egg to determine whether it is shaped like an oval or if it has a point on one end. Eggs that have a distinctly oval shape are supposed to contain pullets, or young female hens, and those with points are supposed to contain cockerels, or young roosters, according to one commonly heard method of guessing chickens genders before they hatch.

Step 3

Have your poultry specialist veterinarian perform clinical tests on the eggs to determine what gender each chick will be. Tests exist to determine whether an embryo will be male or female based on the amniotic fluids inside the egg.