What’s included?
This bundle includes all the materials you need to use our guides to go from a bird sample (blood or feather) to a result using the Bird Sexing Workflow.
Chemical reagents
- HotSHOT DNA Extraction Kit (400 reactions)
- 5X HOT FIREPol® Blend Master Mix Ready to Load (400 μl; 100 reactions)
- PCR grade water (2 ml; 200 reactions)
- Bird Sexing Primer Mix – Primer Set 1 (CHD1F/CHD1R) (200 reactions)
- Bird Sexing Primer Mix – Primer Set 2 (2550F/2718R) (200 reactions)
- Bird Sexing Primer Mix – Primer Set 3 (P0/P2/P8) (200 reactions)
- Agarose tablets (20 tablets; 10× 2%-3% agarose gels)
- GelGreen® DNA Stain (100 μl)
- 10X TBE buffer (50 ml)
- 100 bp DNA Ladder (200 μl)
Plastic consumables
- 0.2 ml PCR tubes (200 tubes)
- 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tubes (100 tubes)
- 2-200 μl pipette tips (3 boxes)
- Nitrile gloves (20)
- Scalpels (10)
Accessory Equipment
- 2-20 μl adjustable pipette
- 20-200 μl adjustable pipette
- 200 mL sharps bin
- 250 mL beaker
What’s not included?
- PCR equipment: To use these materials, you will need access to equipment, either a Bento Lab Entry or similar equipment (i.e. a mini-centrifuge, a PCR thermocycler, a gel electrophoresis unit and a blue-light transilluminator).
- Microwave (or alternative): You will also need a heat source to melt agarose for gel electrophoresis (e.g. a microwave, rice cooker or hot plate)
- Water: You will need 1L of distilled or deionised water to dilute the concentrated 10X TBE buffer provided in the bundle. This is easy and cheaper to find locally or on Amazon/eBay.
How many reactions can I do?
You can analyse up to 48 samples with the materials included, and the accessory equipment can be used for future work.
Many of the reagents are included in excess, so you can restock key reagents to process more samples.
Topping up the Starter Kit for larger numbers of samples
If you want to sex more than 48 birds, then you can top up the bird sexing bundle to a larger number of birds by buying additional items, for example for 100 birds, 200 birds, and 400 birds as detailed in the table below.
| Item | 100 birds | 200 birds | 400 birds |
| HotSHOT DNA Extraction Kit | NA | NA | NA |
| 5x HOT FIREPol Master Mix | 1 × 400 µL tube | 1 × 1000 µL tube | 2 × 1000 µL tube |
| PCR grade water | 1 × 5 mL bottle | 1 × 5 mL bottle | 3 × 5 mL bottle |
| Bird sexing primers | NA | 1 × 400 µL tube | 2 × 400 µL tube |
| 10x TBE buffer | 1 × 50 mL tube | 2 × 50 mL tube | 4 × 50 mL tube |
| Agarose tablets | 1 × 10 tablets | 3 × 10 tablets | 8 × 10 tablets |
| GelGreen DNA stain | NA | 1 × 100 µL tube | 1 × 200 µL tube |
| 100 bp DNA ladder | NA | 1 × 200 µL tube | 2 × 200 µL tube |
| PCR tubes | 2 × 100 tubes | 1 × 500 tubes | 1 × 1000 tubes, and 1 x 100 tubes |
| 1.5 ml tubes | NA | NA | NA |
| 2-200 uL pipette tips | 2 × boxes of 96 tips | 7 × boxes of 96 tips | 17 × boxes of 96 tips |
Want to explore sample cost for larger volumes?
If you want to calculate the quantities and costs of reagents and consumables needed to sex larger numbers of birds, you can try our spreadsheet calculator here. If you have any questions or feedback about the spreadsheet, please get in touch.
