Can Genders Change ?

jadedaisy said:

In June myself and my family had our first chick hatch; as you cannot tell the gender of the chick when first hatched we waited until we could see characteristics that would enable us to tell; after careful research and comparing genders it was clear that our chick was a hen however last week our hen being now 6 months old started crowing ?
Is it possible for a chickens gender to change ??

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QueenMisha said:

Yes. This is called spontaneous sex reversal. This can range from simply a crowing hen to the bird actually growing male plumage, ceasing production, and adapting to male behavior. It's often the result of a hormone imbalance in the bird. Hens have only one ovary; the other sex organ is in a dormant, neutral state. Sometimes, if the hen's ovary is damaged, the other will begin to develop and oftentimes produces a male hormone rather than a female one.

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jadedaisy said:

if this is the case here , does that mean that my bird is unable to fertilise hens ? Or will he not be able to reproduce ?

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junebuggena said:

At 6 months old, it's likely your 'hen' was actually a cockerel.

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junebuggena said:

Spontaneous gender reversal usually happens in older, mature hens that have had some sort of trauma to their functioning ovary or a tumor. It isn't something that happens with young immature birds. It's likely the bird was always male, you just missed some of the early signs or he was slow to develop.

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