Hi Ecologgers! Thank you so much for the advice and words of support!! I will try many of your suggestions in an attempt to increase yield.
A little bit more detail about what I've done so far: nanodrop machine,PCR, and tissue extraction from preserved specimens. I use a nanodrop machine to quantify my DNA yield. I have also run PCR and gels of my samples. I used the protocol from Jensen, T., Pernasetti, F.M., & Durrant, B. 2003. Conditions for rapid sex determination in 47 avian species by PCR of genomic DNA from blood, shell-membrane blood vessels, and feathers. Zoo Biology, 22, 561-571. but have also decreased the annealing temperature as well as increased the cycle number to 45 instead of 30. Lastly, I have extracted tissue samples from male specimens we have. We unfortunately do not have a female specimen for me to extract tissue. My gel results show bands for the tissue samples but never for the feather samples. I'm using Sybersafe 2% e-gels. Thank you very much again!! Erin
