CALIFORNIA The Whole State thread

[Hangtown Farms]

These are only a couple days old. One more hatched...so I am up to 6 girls and a boy.

This is a VERY fun breed. They are great egg layers of med white eggs. Good cold layers and seem to be fine in the heat to. A smaller bird and very good at foraging on free range. And the best part, they are auto-sexing! 1 day old, and I know girls from boys! They are a little flighty, so not a good breed for kids. But great for a low maintance flock!

wow nice odds on the girl boy ratio. congrats

 

[Parkmule]

wow nice odds on the girl boy ratio. congrats

I wonder.....Fish, amphibians and reptiles can manipulate that ration, to what is needed. Some even change sex, IE a girl fish turns into a boy fish if all the boys in the area disappear. It happens in big aquariums, like Monterey, all the time. So...am I have more girls, because i only have the one hen.....makes ya think....

 

[wolftracks]

I wonder.....Fish, amphibians and reptiles can manipulate that ration, to what is needed. Some even change sex, IE a girl fish turns into a boy fish if all the boys in the area disappear. It happens in big aquariums, like Monterey, all the time. So...am I have more girls, because i only have the one hen.....makes ya think....

Makes me want to hide most of my hens!! LOL

 

[chiqita]

I wonder.....Fish, amphibians and reptiles can manipulate that ration, to what is needed. Some even change sex, IE a girl fish turns into a boy fish if all the boys in the area disappear. It happens in big aquariums, like Monterey, all the time. So...am I have more girls, because i only have the one hen.....makes ya think....

from what I understand, the hen determines the breed and its already in the egg, the same way the sperm is already decided in humans. The closest thing I have seen to !!!! like that in poultry is turkeys who can self iseminate on occasion if there are no toms around.

 

[Parkmule]

from what I understand, the hen determines the breed and its already in the egg, the same way the sperm is already decided in humans. The closest thing I have seen to !!!! like that in poultry is turkeys who can self iseminate on occasion if there are no toms around.

right...but you would think this works with most animals....but reptiles, amphibians and fish can tweak it.....just sayin'.......

 

[Parkmule]

from what I understand, the hen determines the breed and its already in the egg, the same way the sperm is already decided in humans. The closest thing I have seen to !!!! like that in poultry is turkeys who can self iseminate on occasion if there are no toms around.

would a hen be able to manipulate her hormones to produce more girl embryos or boys, depending on what is in her environment? (kinda like the turkey). In a perfect work, it should be about 50/50. And would the land-races be better at this then the overly domesticated types....? Just food for thought.

 

[ronott1]

would a hen be able to manipulate her hormones to produce more girl embryos or boys, depending on what is in her environment? (kinda like the turkey). In a perfect work, it should be about 50/50. And would the land-races be better at this then the overly domesticated types....? Just food for thought.

The only thing that come close was an observation that more Cockerels were hatched in the spring and more pullets in the fall.

 

[lawatt]

right...but you would think this works with most animals....but reptiles, amphibians and fish can tweak it.....just sayin'.......

that's not quite accurate -- there are a *few* species that change gender, either as part of their natural lifecycle or "as needed" -- but it is the exception rather than the rule.

and as far as i know, there are NO species that can "manipulate their hormones" to produce more male or female offspring intentionally (aka depending on what's in their environment) -- any more than human men can manipulate their hormones to produce more x-chromosome sperm vs. Y-chromosome sperm. no critters have THAT much control over their own internal chemistry.

 

[chiqita]

that's not quite accurate -- there are a *few* species that change gender, either as part of their natural lifecycle or "as needed" -- but it is the exception rather than the rule.

and as far as i know, there are NO species that can "manipulate their hormones" to produce more male or female offspring intentionally (aka depending on what's in their environment) -- any more than human men can manipulate their hormones to produce more x-chromosome sperm vs. Y-chromosome sperm. no critters have THAT much control over their own internal chemistry.

OK, I'M off topic now.. but i it true that how acid or alkaline the area is will affect what sperm get to an egg in humans ( try typing that family friendly 5x, lol) . I do remember reading that women have an affect that way, so for humans its more both people then originally thought.

But in birds, if its IN the egg, the eggs are all there at birth. So literally from the moment she is born, your deck is stacked. If only we could wave a wand over them and see...

 

[lawatt]

OK, I'M off topic now.. but i it true that how acid or alkaline the area is will affect what sperm get to an egg in humans ( try typing that family friendly 5x, lol) . I do remember reading that women have an affect that way, so for humans its more both people then originally thought.

But in birds, if its IN the egg, the eggs are all there at birth. So literally from the moment she is born, your deck is stacked. If only we could wave a wand over them and see...

yes, in birds, the variable gender chromosomes are in the ovum, not the sperm -- but any given chicken contains *thousands* of egg cells, and there's no way of knowing which ones will be in any given hatch -- so while the hen technically "determines" the gender, it's not like there's any intention involved, nor any way of predicting that, because a given hen had a large proportion of one gender in the given hatch, that she'd ALWAYS lay in that proportion.

don't know about the acidic/alkaline issue -- given the lengths to which people have gone in the past to favor one gender vs. another once kids were born, i suspect that if the acidic/alkaline factor was truly predictive in some way, it would have been put to use!