DNA Poultry Testing

We start with a tiny dried spot of blood, a plucked feather, or the membrane from the shell the bird hatched out of. Any of those carries the bird's DNA, though in our experience a blood spot gives a clear result more reliably than a feather does. A snip of the sample goes into a small tube with a few drops of solution that break the cells open, and a few minutes of heat sets the DNA loose. Male birds carry two Z chromosomes, and females carry a Z and a W. The cycler heats and cools each sample over and over, copying one short stretch of that DNA millions of times until there's enough to see. Then an electric current pulls the copies through a slab of gel, where they line up in bands. Males and females leave different patterns, so the answer comes from the bird's own DNA and never from a guess at its feathers.

We test chicken traits the same way. The blue-egg test shows whether a bird carries the blue shell gene and whether it has one copy, which usually gives a lighter blue egg, or two, which usually gives a deeper blue. The recessive white test finds birds carrying a hidden copy of white. A dominant white test is in the works with the scientists at ChickCheck, and we'll offer that too once it's available.

We're a farm lab and not a veterinary diagnostic service. A result is only as good as the sample, so if we can't get a clear answer, we'll tell you.