Chicken folklore, also known as old wive's tales

[Rte.66_chicks]

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Same concept-When the 7th-graders I teach ask me that, I just tell them that human females have their menstrual cycle without having sex, and that the hen's egg is her "cycle". That satisfies them, and since they don't like talking about such things in class, with an adult, nontheless, they quickly change the subject.

 

[scooter147]

My grandpa use to say: if the chickens stay in when it is raining it will stop before dark, if they stay out in the rain it will rain until dark.

He also said that if cows continue to lie on the ground while it is raining it will stop in and hour or two, if they continue to graze it will rain all day.

Neither work, ...but I won't tell him it doesn't.

 

[Dar]

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thats too funny i say the same thing to people...I have old timrs asking me at the feed store if I have eggs yet and I reply no..."well you gotta get a rooster then"

 

[fowltemptress]

How about this one . . . Brown eggs come from the pooper, and white eggs come from the . . . um . . . "mating hole" (don't know if I can use the word actually used). I wanted to let them look over a chicken and try to find the second hole, but I didn't know the person, and after that comment I didn't feel particularly compelled to introduce myself.
I wonder where they think green eggs come from . . . the urinary tract, perhaps?

 

[Jilara]

People have told me seriously that white eggs "have a more delicate flavor." Flavor of what? If you're not feeding them garlic or something, they taste like eggs! Also, chickens eating a lot of bugs will make the eggs taste funny, so keep them in a coop.

I've also heard you can also get brown eggs by feeding them certain things. But no one seems to know what those things are. Maybe you get blue eggs from blue corn meal?

And of course, if you turn a chicken upside down, it will go right to sleep, as in out cold. Now, I've hypnotised a few chickens, in my time, but I've never had one pass out cold simply because I turned it upside down!

 

[ams3651]

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[swampducks]

My MIL's white rocks have no rooster. MIL says she doesn't want a rooster because when she boils fertilized eggs the whites are covered in tiny gray/black spots.

I have seen these spots. She claims since they got rid of the rooster there aren't any more spots.

Any one heard of this? True or not?

 

[dacjohns]

Heard this one today.

Give your chickens a pinch of black pepper and they will keep laying during the winter.

 

[sunnychooks]

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I think that may come from their relatives. An alligators sex is determined by incubation temp, not genetics.

I don't remember the source, but I read somewhere that the incubation temperature does not affect the sex of a reptile. Instead, female embryos are more sensitive to high incubation temps, therefore, are more prone to dying before the hatch. The higher percentage of males born has more to do with their ability to survive the temperature before the hatch than the temperature itself having any bearing on the sex of the reptile.

 

[Wine-dotte]

i had one golden oldie tell me that(on day 17 under my broody) because we had thunder and lightening that day the unhatched chicks would die in the eggs and to throw them out and start again

Apparently thunder and lightening kills unhatched chicks

I'm pleased to announce they arrived 3 days ago and are destroying my backyard as we speak