Dowsing Eggs

A mystical way of checking for pullets - before they hatch

Dowsing eggs is a very simple and old technique to tell if the eggs you’ve collected are going to hatch into a rooster or a hen.

Here I’ve believed that you can’t easily tell the gender of chicks and determine whether they are a boy or a girl chick until they start to produce a comb – but why not try and sex the eggs before you put them to hatch?

It has apparently been used for a long time in Japan for sexing chicks, even in an assembly line, so that means lots of eggs.

What a great thing to know in advance, before going to all the work of hatching, brooding, raising and feeding a clutch, only to find out that the majority are roosters.

Here’s How to Dowse Eggs:

You can tell the gender of the chick before you even start to incubate them by dowsing the egg using a small object on a string – some dowsers use strictly a special crystal, but anything will work, even a bolt or a pebble with fishing line tied around it, or even a wedding ring.

Put the egg on a flat surface away from other eggs.

Hold the pendulum over the egg.

Hold it completely still and then watch to see what the object does.

• If it ends up going around in a small circle, the egg holds a rooster.
• If it goes across in a straight line, the egg will hatch into a hen.
• It will show duds, or infertile eggs by not moving at all.

Some people recommend you 'suggest' what you want - show me male, show me female, before starting the dowsing.

I’m still experimenting with dowsing eggs to see if it works and gives a better percentage of hens, eliminating the problem of dealing with those pesky roosters. I’m keeping an open mind, while staying skeptical!

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