Any luck with double yolkers/twins?

[Kat C]

IMO, it's not likely for the double yolk egg to have one embryo absorb the second. (because the 2 embryos would be separated by the distance of the 2 yolks. But, what do I know! The situation being described: a single individual posessing genetic material from 2 distinct sets of DNA is called Chimerism. The individual would be a Chimera.

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=8905

https://www.ranker.com/list/chimera-animals/mariel-loveland

In the case of the roo with comb and wattles growing on the back of his neck, I would guess that he is a chimera! The second link shows a number of animal chimeras including a rooster.

Good points

 

[Kat C]

Unethical that is a stretch.Personally I find it a challenge to try and hatch double yolk.I also believe it's ok to experiment on rats and mice.

Its unethical because it serves no useful purpose but puts both chicks at risk. It serves no useful purpose because the chicks will be siblings in one shell and you can just as easily get siblings in two shells where they have more room, more food, more air and a much better chance of surviving. The only reason that I have heard from anyone on BYC for doing this is it would be "fun" or something along that line. I don't mind experiments on rats and mice for useful (to humans of course) research, but I would find it unethical for someone to experiment on rats and mice because they thought it would be fun. Lets see how about "lets give this mother rat a half ration of food and water and constrict her abdomen for the fun of seeing how the babies turn out"? That is basically what you are doing when you set a double yolk egg. After the "fun" of seeing two chicks from one shell, then what. Will it be fun if you watch them both die? Will it be fun if they both die in the shell. Will it be fun on the small chance that they live and do OK but look no different from other siblings.
Want to have fun with chickens....hatch them under a broody hen. Watch a mother hen transform from an ordinary hen to a dutiful mom. Watch mom and chicks take dust baths together. Listen to the way the mother calls them. Watch two moms call their chicks and the chicks know just which one to go to and the moms know just which ones are theirs. Feed the chicks some live feed and watch them chase each other to get the best tidbits. All sorts of things that are fun without depriving them from a decent start in life.

 

[oceansunset73]

To intentionally put a life at risk of sever pain and suffering just so you can see what would happen, for curiosity sake is wrong and completely unnecessary.

 

[Hyroler]

Its not a life until it hatches and you don't know if they are feeling pain.Everyday thousands of chicks are hatched and 50% of them are killed because they are cockerels.

 

[mdees88]

Its unethical because it serves no useful purpose but puts both chicks at risk. It serves no useful purpose because the chicks will be siblings in one shell and you can just as easily get siblings in two shells where they have more room, more food, more air and a much better chance of surviving.

It does serve a useful purpose, it allows the embryos a fighting chance at life. To DEPRIVE organisms a chance at life, based solely on the fact that said organisms have a higher chance of death seems a lot more unethical to me...

 

[Kat C]

It does serve a useful purpose, it allows the embryos a fighting chance at life. To DEPRIVE organisms a chance at life, based solely on the fact that said organisms have a higher chance of death seems a lot more unethical to me...

So does that mean we have to incubate every fertile egg that our chickens lay? So by your standards we have to either have to have no roosters with our hens or if we have roosters with our hens we must hatch out every single fertile egg, eating none, and feeding ever huger flocks of chickens. Lets see if a hen lays 100 eggs a year and half of them are hens and they start laying at 6 months, how many do we have in one year.

 

[mdees88]

So does that mean we have to incubate every fertile egg that our chickens lay? So by your standards we have to either have no roosters with our hens or if we have roosters with our hens we must hatch out every single fertile egg, eating none, and feeding ever huger flocks of chickens. Lets see if a hen lays 100 eggs a year and half of them are hens and they start laying at 6 months, how many do we have in one year.

That's not what I said at all. Let's try this again.....

It does serve a useful purpose, it allows the embryos a fighting chance at life. To DEPRIVE organisms a chance at life, based solely on the fact that said organisms have a higher chance of death seems a lot more unethical to me...

You said it's unethical because a double yoker has a higher chance of death than a single yolker (paraphrasing). Based on your standards I shouldn't hatch eggs under a broody hen because incubators have better hatch rates....

 

[Kat C]

That's not what I said at all. Let's try this again.....



You said it's unethical because a double yoker has a higher chance of death than a single yolker (paraphrasing). Based on your standards I shouldn't hatch eggs under a broody hen because incubators have better hatch rates....

I beg to differ, our hatches under a broody hen have higher hatch rates than incubators are reported to have. Further we have less of the problems that chicks hatched in incubators have as the hen knows how to do it exactly right, not too hot, not too cold, perfect humidity. And they aren't born orphans.
But you said you shouldn't deprive and organism the right to life based on survivablity. But every fertile egg is a living organism and if you set 20 eggs including 1 double yolker and the double yolker predictably doesn't hatch you have denied another fertile egg with a higher chance of living the right to life because of the novelty of hatching a double yolker. Every time you pick some eggs to hatch and some fertile eggs to eat you are denying a living organism the right to life, and you are eating a fetus. Why not give the eggs you chose to hatch the best possible start in life and enjoy the "novelty" of cracking a double yolker in the fry pan.

 

[mdees88]

I beg to differ, our hatches under a broody hen have higher hatch rates than incubators are reported to have.

That's not correct... you may have better hatch rates than a bunch of novice hatchers using $100 incubators they got from tractor supply, hatching eggs that were shipped through the mail. But a quality cabinet incubator will have the same or better hatch rates than a broody hen on any given day of the week. It's very simple, it's a controlled environment, a hen is not.

But you said you shouldn't deprive and organism the right to life based on survivablity. But every fertile egg is a living organism and if you set 20 eggs including 1 double yolker and the double yolker predictably doesn't hatch you have denied another fertile egg with a higher chance of living the right to life because of the novelty of hatching a double yolker.

This makes no sense to me. How did I "deprive another egg the right to life" by setting a double yolker. I can fit 2400 eggs in my incubators....

Every time you pick some eggs to hatch and some fertile eggs to eat you are denying a living organism the right to life, and you are eating a fetus.

Yes, I am. And I have no problem with that.... because I'm eating them. I have no problem either way, hatching a double yolder or not. But I'm not the one preaching about ethics.... I'm just arguing the the other side of your point.

Why not give the eggs you chose to hatch the best possible start in life and enjoy the "novelty" of cracking a double yolker in the fry pan.

That's exactly what I do and I personally have never incubated a double yolker, I eat them.... BUT... I'm not going to sit here and label someone immoral because they do... and I'm going to set the next one I get and see how it goes..... because I'm an immoral person

 

[mdees88]

It's one thing to state an opinion that you personally don't like hatching double yolkers because their chance of survival is very low (I agree with you).........but it's another thing to tell someone what they're doing is unethical.....