An experiment to hatch hens working?

[SpunkyTheMonkey]

Quote:
yup, all things being equal, 50/50 is what you should expect.

sorry but this whole thing is nonsense. all the eggs in a forced air bator are subject to the same temp and humidity, and much more stable than under a hen where she's rotating them inside to outside, wandering off for food and water and a poo once a day etc. if there was anything to what you were saying it would be blatantly obvious to everyone already.

i know this temp skewing hatch sexes thing is true for some species (crocs & alligators iirc) but not chickens.

 

[Andora]

Would it be that the rooster eggs just wouldn't survive? So you'd get a lower hatch rate?

I thought that the sex of the chick was determined by the hen, so the eggs are already pullets or cockerels regardless of the temp at which you incubate them, right? So the idea would be to keep the temps a little lower so that only the pullet eggs survive? (Or higher, which ever.)

 

[Akane]

First you absolutely cannot change the gender of an egg after it's laid. Temperature would not do it. What genetics the chick got is determined when the egg is laid and genetics determines gender. Logically, scientifically, rationally, (pick some more big words) you cannot change the gender of a chick without some gene splicing. Temperature will not change what gene the hen gave the chick.

Second adding anything to keep eggs warmer under a hen won't actually make them warmer. Hens regulate the temperature of their eggs. They will simply not sit as tight and move the eggs toward the edges of their body. A hen will sometimes even take newer laid eggs and put them closer under her body while shoving older eggs outward in order to speed up the new egg and slow down the earlier ones so they hatch closer together. Hens will regulate temperature no matter what you do. That's why they can hatch chicks in 21 days if it's over 100F out and also if it's below freezing out. If they couldn't chicks would hatch at different times depending on the outdoor temperature cause they'd incubate at different speeds.

Finally it's been tested and proven before that pullets die easier at higher temperatures during incubation. So while you can't change the gender after the eggs are laid keeping the temp higher will mean more chicks die before hatch and more of those will be pullets than roos. That leads to actually hatching more roos at higher temps not less.

Sorry but your experiment has too many variables, too few test eggs, and can be disproven very easily. You cannot control chicken gender by temperature. Even when not experimenting with altering gender you need to count 100s of offspring to get an accurate ratio of how many males to females are born. A handful of eggs is not accurate. I've had hatches of dozens of eggs that hatched nearly all pullets but that doesn't mean that will always happen. Another hatch with eggs from the same chickens under the same conditions has given me 60% roos.

 

[chicken stalker]

So how do alligators hatch clutches of eggs? I know that temperature control does affect what happens to an alligator egg. Under 86F hatches females and higher temps hatch males.

Not looking for a fight, just curious

 

[Burbs]

Quote:
Here this might help.............

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=d12fd29f9c7034b91ec6ffb2ddb56596

 

[Sitka]

I will have to say I am skeptical about this as well. If it were true, wouldn't the big commercial hatcheries (for whom male chicks are largely useless) have discovered this and put it into practice? I commend your interest in the question, though.

 

[Burbs]

There is nothing to be skeptical about. Mammal's and bird's sexes are determined by chromosomes. That is pretty much the end of the story.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Just coincidence. Alligators and chickens are COMPLETELY different. Yes, they may be related to dinosaurs (a common ancestor) somehow, but alligators are reptiles and chickens are birds. The female decides the gender as soon as the egg has been laid and fertilized. Though there is another thread suggesting that the number of males and females in a population would determine how many roos/hens would hatch. Still determined by the hen, but if there are an abundance of roosters, she may want more hens to hatch to even out the population.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Where did you get his information? Is there some data or evidence to back it up?

I tend to side with the skeptics here: genetic outcomes in chickens are determined at conception. Akane said it very well.

In case you are interested, there was an experiment done some 30 years ago along these lines. But instead of modifying temperatures the experiment revolved around diet. Here is the gist of it:

"Mother Earth News Issue # 55 - January/February 1979
Dr. N.W. Walker (D. Sc., Ph.D.)

MORE FEMALES PER HATCH

Some years ago, while doing research on the properties of sorghum seed, I discovered that a genetic female hormone was quite prevalent in these small, glossy kernels.

I had a feeling that this sorghum hormone could, perhaps, influence the percentage of female birds hatched, and-to check this "hunch"—I set up an experiment using zebra finches ... which (because they regularly hatch up to four eggs a month) seemed the best choice available to me.

Before I began the research, these birds had hatched out a predictable half-and-half mixture of male and female finches. I decided to keep a full dish of sorghum seeds in the aviary at all times and watch for developments.

At first the birds didn't show much interest in the new food, but-in the course of three or four weeks - they began to feed on the sorghum before moving on to their regular feeders ... and they followed this pattern both morning and evening.

Then, after two or three months, I began to notice an increase In the number of female birds hatched. In fact, by the end of the first year of sorghum-supplemented feeding, my finches produced close to four female birds for every male hatched!

Unfortunately, other (and, at the moment, more important) matters interrupted my experiments before I could take the time to see if my "discovery" held true for larger birds, too.

I do hope to continue this research—as soon as time allows—with Marsh's Pharaoh Coturnix Quail, because these birds are about the most prolific larger fowl that I've come across. Quail eggs hatch within 16 days, and the chicks actually begin laying eggs themselves by five or six weeks after hatching. Obviously, these qualities would help the experiments proceed quickly.

In the meantime, however, I'm glad to pass this little bit of information along to anyone who has a few chickens, geese, etc. and who would be interested in seeing if sorghum seed will increase the percentage of female chicks produced by these more practical barnyard fowls. I can assure you that I've found nothing in sorghum that was not definitely beneficial to the health of any birds fed on this seed.

And, in exchange for this little tip, I'd appreciate it if any of you poultry-raising MOTHER readers who try this experiment with your own birds would drop me a line ... just to let me know what results (if any) you might have. Just address any such information to Dr. N.W. Walker, P.O. Box 13206, Phoenix, Arizona 85002.
EDITOR'S NOTE: MOTHER would like to thank the Poultry Press, Box 947, York, Pennsylvania 17405, for bringing Dr. Walker's experiments to her attention."


Dr Walker is now deceased. He was also a pioneer in natural foods, juicing and healthy lifestyles and his books in this field are still well read. Whether he ever learned if sorghum could give more female chickens than males will remain a mystery. Perhaps it is up to us to carry on his work...

 

[DANNY]

One thing you always have to consider is the source of information. Whoever wrote this book obviously is wrong. You cannot control the sex of a chicken with temperature. Everybody needs to realize that just because you read it somewhere dosen't make it so. A lot of people who write books has no first hand knowledge so they read something somewhere and decide to put it in their book. There is a lot of bad information out there so readers need to be aware if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn't.