ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2008) — Scientists in Germany are reporting development of test that can answer one of the most frustrating questions in the animal kingdom: Is that bird a boy or a girl? Their study is a potential boon to poultry farmers and bird breeders.

Juergen Popp and colleagues point out that the boy-girl question can be difficult to answer in birds that lack distinctive, gender-related plumage. Since birds lack external genital organs, sexing a bird typically involves endoscopic examination of the animal's gonads under general anesthesia or specific molecular biological methods.

Since these methods are expensive, time-consuming, and stressful for the bird, scientists long have sought a quick, minimal-invasive sexing alternative.

In the new study, researchers describe such a test, which involves analysis of tissue pulp from birds' feathers using a highly sensitive lab instrument.

The method, called ultraviolet-resonance Raman (UVRR) spectroscopy, took less than a minute, and identified the birds' sex with 95 percent accuracy, the scientists say.

The article "Minimal Invasive Gender Determination of Birds by Means of UV-Resonance Raman Spectroscopy" is scheduled for the Feb. 15 issue of ACS' Analytical Chemistry. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ac702043q

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In a finding that could be a boon to poultry farmers and bird breeders, scientists have developed a new test to ease the sometimes difficult task of determining the sex of birds. (Credit: Courtesy of USDA Agricultural Research Service)

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