Avian egg odour encodes information on embryo sex, fertility and development.

All eggs exhibited a change in odour composition between day 1 and day 8 (fertile eggs: δ 1 2 = 0.79, P < 0.001; infertile eggs: δ 1 2 = 0.85, P < 0.001); however, while there was no significant difference in volatile composition between fertile and infertile eggs on day 1 (δ 1 2 = 0.15, P = 0.738), by day 8 the difference was highly significant (δ 1 2 = 0.86, P < 0.001) ( Fig. 1 ).

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