Hens lay fertile eggs without Rooster?

[CarlisleCluck]

My question to the group comes about after a conversation I had with a gentlemen last evening. I know that hens lay eggs without having a rooster around - no problem, happens all the time. And I know that once you have a rooster, the hen will then lay "fertile" eggs.

My friend was telling me that back in the 1930s a study was done with 100 hens that were completely isolated from any roosters. After a while, 17 of the 100 hens laid eggs that were not only FERTILE, but were all female chicks. It was explained as some sort of throwback survival thing.

I find this hard to believe - if it were true, why would we need roosters at all (except for their beauty and lovely crowing)? If we could guarantee female-only chicks, that would certainly solve the headaches a lot of people have when they find that they got the 1 in 100 male.

So - has anyone ever heard of this study? Has anyone every experienced this phenomenon? Or has he done a really great job pulling my leg?

Thanks for any comments (except those that say I am completely gullible!).

 

[tandykins]

I have read that article but in the 50 years I have had chickens I have never seen it happen and I have had thousands of birds over the years. I don't believe it. This is the best way to explain it as I see it, for example if a person is gay their sex is still male or female regardless of their sexual preference. I will admit there are oddities in nature, extra body parts or missing body parts. A female chicken can take on an alpha role if there is no male and mock mate other females, but that is just showing dominance.

Parthenogenesis isn't something to be believed in or not believed in. It's a scientifically tested fact. You can disbelieve it - but your disbelief doesn't change that it is very real.

It happens most often in species of reptiles/insects/amphibians but there have been well documented cases of it occurring in -several- species of bird. We're not talking about anecdotal evidence that someone's buddy heard from someone's sister's uncle's neighbour's poker buddy's dog's vet. We're talking about research performed by biologists and geneticists.

It's not even a process that's terribly odd. There are at least two species of reptile that are literally entirely composed of females because they ONLY breed through parthenogenesis and stick insects (which I breed) very frequently breed by this method. Mammals are actually rather the odd-branch-out in this respect - and in lab settings even human embryos can be created by using parthenogenesis.

It's not make-believe. It's not pretend and it's not a fantasy story or a dream someone had. It's basic biology that can be repeated and tested. Not believing in it is a bit like not believing that the earth is a spheroid body or not believing in gravity. It is a thing based on observation, evidence and testing that we know to be true.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Completely absent a rooster - it's not possible.

However, you can remove a rooster from the hens and the hens will lay fertile eggs for another 3 weeks or so. The hens can store the rooster juice.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome to the forum! Glad you joined us!

I try to not use the word "never' with anything chicken. Life will sometimes find a way. I would not be surprised to find that it is possible for a hen to lay a fertile egg without a rooster, but there is a whole lot of difference between what can happen and what will happen. And it is hard to prove that something can never happen. It is pretty easy to prove something is not likely to happen.

From a genetic viewpoint. A rooster gives one copy of every gene he has to all his offspring. A hen does not give a copy of all the genes she has. She withholds her "sex-linked" genes from her daughters but gives a complete set of genes to her sons. That means the hen determines the sex of her chicks. I guess it is possible she could provide genetic material for a son and a daughter and produce a pullet. But that would really be freaky. If that were as common as 17 out if 100, we would get a lot of freaks when we incubate eggs.

If this were even possible, it would be extremely extraordinarily rare. I can not envision 17 eggs doing this out of 100 that were incubated. I'd expect you would have to incubate hundreds of thousands of eggs if not more to get one. No one can afford to incubate that many eggs just to get pullets. You can get pullets half the time just by following normal practices.

I'd really want to know where that study came from. A hen can lay fertile eggs for two or three weeks after a mating. If there is any truth to that at all, I'd suspect it was a sloppy test, not a miraculous test result.

I don't believe everythng I read on the internet, in the newspaper or in books. I don't believe everything people tell me and maybe sometimes I'm not sure when I'm the one doing the telling. I don't even believe everything I see with my own two eyes, including the things I saw before I needed glasses. Is that a gentle enough way to say that maybe you would be gullible to believe that without checking it out?

 

[A.T. Hagan]

A Google search on "parthenogenesis" and "chicken" will reveal much.

It is not common, but it has been known to happen and there are several factors that can influence it.

 

[Skink]

Absolutely agree with tandykins. This isn't really a matter of belief, saying it is untrue would instead be willful ignorance, which is very different from disbelief. As an aside, comparing sexual preferences to reproductive anatomy didn't really make much sense, cmom. Were you perhaps trying to allude to the fact a same sex pairing won't produce embryos? That's true in humans, but the issue is not so black and white with parthenogenetic species. Just look at whiptail lizards, the most famous example. They need to mate with other females in order to kick start their successful reproduction! Genetic material isn't provided by either female to the other, but mounting and being mounted by other females is necessary.

To answer the original question of CarlisleCluck, the reason we still have to make more chickens the old fashioned sexual reproduction way is mainly because embryos produced by parthenogenesis are almost never viable in chickens! In fact, studying parthenogenesis in domestic fowl is important when it comes to increasing fertility! Frequency of producing parthenogenetic eggs has been found to be genetic, and breeding against this increases the chances of the embryo in an egg being a viable (aka produced sexually) embryo. Single parent eggs also have greatly reduced genetic diversity, and the rare embryo that does make it to hatch doesn't tend to be the healthiest of chickens. For the last hen(s) in their isolated environment, this small percentage of single parent eggs could be the savior of their population, but sexual reproduction produces ideal results.

I wish there was a way to produce only hens where only hens are wanted, it would prevent a lot of cruelty, but natural parthenogenesis sadly isn't the answer with this species. Maybe someday when we know more.

 

[tandykins]

To answer the original question of CarlisleCluck, the reason we still have to make more chickens the old fashioned sexual reproduction way is mainly because embryos produced by parthenogenesis are almost never viable in chickens! In fact, studying parthenogenesis in domestic fowl is important when it comes to increasing fertility! Frequency of producing parthenogenetic eggs has been found to be genetic, and breeding against this increases the chances of the embryo in an egg being a viable (aka produced sexually) embryo. Single parent eggs also have greatly reduced genetic diversity, and the rare embryo that does make it to hatch doesn't tend to be the healthiest of chickens. For the last hen(s) in their isolated environment, this small percentage of single parent eggs could be the savior of their population, but sexual reproduction produces ideal results.

I wish there was a way to produce only hens where only hens are wanted, it would prevent a lot of cruelty, but natural parthenogenesis sadly isn't the answer with this species. Maybe someday when we know more.

Not to mention the sheer genetic bottlenecking that would happen if the same female genes were constantly passed through hundreds of generations. Whiptail lizards are almost bizarre in how successfully they've been doing this for so long - just constantly cloning themselves.

I had an absolute braingasm when reading Ohio State University's findings earlier this year when, in the setting of a research farm, Dr. M. W. Olsen not only produced viable parthenogenetic females (females with a higher incidence of reproduction through parthenogenesis) by selective breeding but found that 8% of the hatched eggs were -males-. Not only males. -Fertile- males. That is amazing. I cannot wait to read his further research.

But it follows that if this result is possible in turkeys - there is no reason to believe that, under specific conditions - this is not also possible in chickens.

This happened under controlled circumstances - but it's likely happened in nature, albeit -extremely- rarely. We likely just hadn't noticed.

...******, now I'm thinking about changing my major again...I -love- biology.

 

[aoxa]

Sorry, adding a little bit more.

Unfortunately the bantam that laid the suspect egg is now broody and not laying. However, after much internet searching, I have found a picture of an egg which is reported as being fertile and looks exactly like what I saw in her egg; a little white dot inside and an outer white circle:



Not ever having had a rooster, fertile eggs is something I really did not pay a lot of attention to and only happened to notice this by chance.

Looking at lots of other fertile egg images, they appear to be slightly different to the above in that while the outer circle is obvious, the inner circle/period/dot is not as defined as it is in the above image.

In everyone's opinion, is the above image of a fertile egg?

Can I ask where you found this? Whoever posted it stole my image and removed my watermark.. Not cool

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Okay, so I looked this question up. Because I have a hen that has been sitting on the nest all day, and we got rid of the Rooster about 8 months ago if not more. For some reason all my hens like to lay in the same nest...they have 5. And she has kicked everyone out. So can a hen get broody without a Roo?

Yes - hens can, and do, go broody without a rooster in the flock. Broodiness is purely hormonal on the part of the hen.

 

[junebuggena]

Put her in a elevated wire crate about a foot off the ground, no bedding/nesting materials. Give her food and water and let her out once or twice a day. When you let her out, if she goes straight to the nest, put her back in the crate. If, after a few days, she stops going for the nest, you have succeeded in breaking her broodiness. Sometimes, when it's really warm out, keeping a fan on her will help keep her cool enough for the hormones to stop making her broody.