You may have heard of dowsing for water - well believe it or not you can dowse your eggs to find the sex of the chicken growing inside it! Any metal object suspended on a string will do - I use a rusty old split pin on thick cotton twine. Hold it over the egg, keeping your hand as still as possible by resting your elbow on a desk or chair arm. Let your mind go blank and see how the weight swings. If it swings back and forth in a straight line the contents are female. If it swings in a circle (usually clockwise) you have a male.

I have been keeping records for just over two years and my findings though unexplained mean I can limit the number of cockerels I produce by only placing female eggs in the incubator. The volumes I hatch won't satisfy a statistician but are fairly conclusive to me, when poultry keeping friends around me complain of too many cockerels!

I also did better than Apple and Aunty who went broody and hatched their own eggs. Apple managed 38% female and the Muscovy only raised 29% females! Thus proving that the natural way isn't always the best. It is by far the easiest though and gave us endless pleasure watching the families grow.

I must teach my mother ducks how to dowse before they have another go!

Parts 1 and 2 below are articles I submitted to Colchester Poultry Club for inclusion in the club magazine, Hen-Pen, followed by a recent update on my trials.

Part 1 - October 2001 (top)

One evening when an experienced friend was visiting us we asked her to confirm that out of 3 Japanese eggs we had hatched that we had two females and one male. You can imagine my surprise when she held a little weight over them to confirm what we thought. The two pullets gave very positive results but the cockerel was neither straight or circular.

That was the first time I had heard of dowsing the sex of chickens! ( I wonder if it works on pregnant women or if her hormones would interfere with the results)

My brother-in-law, who is a builder, uses it frequently to find underground water pipes etc. He used it when he was doing some building for us to mark the course of the sewer before the digger moved in to dig some new foundations. There were no smelly accidents so he has obviously got the knack for dowsing.

We tested him out on some of our chicks which were just old enough to sex but not obvious enough for him to know the difference. The only one he had an inconclusive result on is my ‘male’ Japanese for which the pendulum went all over the place.

Interestingly this is exactly what happened with Ann so perhaps he’s a bit of an ‘im-she’. Only time will tell. He’s straight for me but that could be wishful thinking. That was good enough proof for me.

I then set about checking and marking all my eggs and discarding (eating) most of the ‘male’ eggs. The first batch hatched last weekend and sure enough the straight liners now dowse as circles. I should have one male and six females.

Part 2 - May 2002(top)

The first group of eggs that I dowsed are now young adults, and the results are very encouraging, even if I have not yet reached a statistically viable sample size. Who cares about that though!

These were all hatched late last year so the sex of the birds is now obvious.

I have correctly dowsed 3 males and 9 females of differing breeds of chicken - 2 Fayoumi hens, 1 Male and 1 Female Friesian, 1 Male and 1 Female Sumatra, 1 Male and 5 Female Birchen Grey Japanese.

My only failure in that first group is a female Aylesbury duck, which unfortunately turned out to be male and is now in amorous pursuit of anything with wings – ducks, chickens and moorhens included. He’s not fast enough to catch my Indian Runners but is getting lots of exercise trying.

Perhaps ducks are different, but I haven’t got any other examples. Has anyone else tried them?

 Including the duck the accuracy of Dowsing is currently running at 92%.

 I’ve got lots of growing chicks, which are looking good with only two suspect males that were originally dowsed as female - one Red-Saddled Yokohama and a Blue Frizzle. If the Frizzle matures as a male it will be a blessing in disguise, as his father died and I don’t have a male now, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I was wrong with that one.

I have noticed that if a newly hatched chick is dowsed I often get the same result as if dowsing the egg. By the second day it dowses as it should do according to eggs set. (Remember from the previous article a circular motion over and egg indicates male which will change to a straight line over a chick/adult. Hens are straight eggs and circular birds).

 When we got back from holiday in February, Ginger, one of our roaming, pet chickens, was found in the leaf compost bin sitting on lots of eggs. I took out the ones which dowsed as male and left her with 6 female eggs. Three weeks later she presented me with 9 chicks – I’m not sure where the extra ones came from. They may have been later additions to the clutch or possibly buried in the leaves and I missed them. I’m sure at least one of them is a male, but whether it is one I dowsed wrongly or one of the ‘new’ eggs I can’t say.

Also while selecting the eggs to hatch I have noticed a seasonal change in the ratio of female eggs to male. With my roaming flock I always try to prevent them sitting on eggs after Easter as experience had shown the percentage of males increases as the year progresses. This has been borne out with dowsing. Between January and March the ratio was about 80% female to 20% male. This decreased last month with a split of 60% to 40% still in the favour of females.

 As unscientific as dowsing and ‘Old Wives Tales’ may be there seems some undeniable element of truth in them. I too was sceptical and would like to know how/why it works.

Part 3 - July 2003(top)

The final total for 2001 was 88% dowsed correctly and that mottled Japanese male grew up to look like a male, but has never managed to father any chicks!

As I mention on the Yokohama page I had a major set-back in 2002 with them producing four males out of 5 female dowsed eggs. Results like that stick in your mind and influence your confidence in dowsing, but my overall success rate was still 80% for the year, so well worth continuing with. 

I must admit if I really want a female of a particular breed the weight seems to swings straight anyway. I find I have to banish all thoughts of preference out of my mind when I dowse. I also do it a couple of times now to double check on my own results before selecting eggs to incubate.

I've have done better with ducks this year with only one failure out of nine. There is another duckling in the brooder which should be a female - fingers crossed. The other two eggs incubated at the same time failed to hatch - one was the double yolk so I wasn't surprised about that. If she is a she that will be 90% for the year which is very encouraging.

So far this year my overall success rate is 88% - but I'm no nearer understanding why it works.

Part 4 - May 2005(top)

I have just realised this page has not been updated for a long time so we went back over our records to check how I have been doing.

2003 Ducks - The tenth egg was a female so my overall rate for ducks was 90%.
2003 Chickens - Only 60% correct and again it was the Yokohama's that let me down. I ought to try swapping directions for these, though I'm already over-run with males - I'm not sure if I dare try it!

2004 Ducks - I didn't hatch quite so many and still had one failure which left me with 86% correct.
2004 Chickens - Overall I got 77% correct, but what surprised me was that Dutch Gold were only 50% correct, as were Yokohama Silver Duckwing.

 Part 5 - February 2007(top)

Bird Flu interupted the breeding and keeping of records for 2005 and 2006 but I have resumed setting eggs as I am getting seriously low on numbers and the birds I have are getting quite old now and their fertility is likely to be declining. All the eggs I have put in the incubator are dowsing as female. Before Easter I would expect a high percentage of female, but the concern is that they may not yet be fertile. I will know by the weekend which are developing.
April - Well I had a good hatch rate with 4 Gold Dutch and 4 Yokohamas. (A fifth dutch had twisted feet and did not manage to get out of the egg by itself.) At the moment it looks like one male and three female in each group but they are only three weeks old so it may be a bit early yet. My White Yokohama percentage has been attrocious in the past. So much so that I was tempted to incubate 'Male' eggs just to get female hatchings.  However I stuck to the rules and will be quite happy with 75%.

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