Can hens ever turn into roosters?

[lazy gardener]

Apparently, yes.

What are you basing this statement on? Just b/c it crows, or even develops spurs and an outward male appearance, that does not make it a male. (assuming we are talking about a hen who used to lay eggs.) If she is able to fertilize eggs, then, you could call her a male.

 

[KitaMick1]

Yes, the hen was a good layer for her age; I'll be curious to see if she ever produces after this.

 

[scrampsey21]

ive heard about someone who had a flock of all hens and because there was no rooster one became one. Kind of like bees

 

[bobbi-j]

ive heard about someone who had a flock of all hens and because there was no rooster one became one. Kind of like bees

They may take on some of the traits, such as crowing or growing spurs, but they cannot change their gender completely. A hen will not suddenly start being able to fertilize another hen's eggs.

 

[lazy gardener]

ive heard about someone who had a flock of all hens and because there was no rooster one became one. Kind of like bees

Even this is an old wive's tale. Had to do a thread search. The queen determines the gender of every member of her hive, based on whether she fertilizes the eggs she lays. The sperm is provided in a single breeding flight. Check out this fascinating article. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bee-Sex-Controled-by-the-Queen-71168.shtml

The bee's universe is a tough monarchy, the proletariat has no say there. The queen honey bee decides the sex of her offspring, points a new research published in Behavioral Ecology, a finding that challenges the belief that queens are just 'egg laying machines' and that worker bees decide if the queen is going to deliver males or females.
During the mating flight, before founding the colony, the young queen mates with several partners, keeping their sperms which she will use for the rest of her life, bit by bit, as she produces eggs.
Males (drones) hatch from unfertilized eggs, and females (queen and workers) only from fertilized eggs. Thus sperm added to an egg means a female; if not, it will be a male, so that the queen should control the sex of new individuals.
However, entomologists accepted the idea that workers are the ones which do this. They build the chambers (cells) in which the queen deposits its eggs. Bigger cells will harbor males, as these larvae are bigger. Researchers had believed that the workers (which build the cells) can limit through the cells' size the number of male offspring delivered by the queen.
But the team led by Katie Wharton at Michigan State University in East Lansing places queens inside their colonies in specially built cages. The cage impeded the queen's access to the large drone producing cells, so that she could lay only worker eggs. 4 days later, the queen was freed in the hive, which had many empty cells of both sizes.
The queen preferred the larger cells, delivering about 3 times more drone eggs than she normally does, setting up the skewed forced gender ratio determined by her incarceration. "The workers and the queen clearly share control of honey bee demographics. It was like discovering a checks-and-balances government inside the hive.", said Wharton.


Read more: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bee-Sex-Controled-by-the-Queen-71168.shtml#ixzz4RGCfGyUG

 

[FlyWheel]

I bought a 'pullet' that was supposed to grow up into a hen, but she decided she would rather 'mate' her 'sisters' instead. So i named her/him Chaz.
Edited by Staff

 

[KitaMick1]

Now this is absolutely an oddity! A second hen(3 year old EE just finished molt) in my flock of 13 crowed this morning! Should I get a rooster to stop this? This is year five I've had hens.

 

[lazy gardener]

How old are they? If you want eggs, you may need to get some younger girls. Your choice whether you run a retirement villa for the old girls!

 

[scrampsey21]

They may take on some of the traits, such as crowing or growing spurs, but they cannot change their gender completely. A hen will not suddenly start being able to fertilize another hen's eggs.

i dont know, thats just what someone told me. I did have a hen that had very big spurs and she was my best layer.

 

[KitaMick1]

I don't mind if the 5 year old retires at all; I just don't want her to retire as part rooster Today I'm borrowing a friend's rooster a couple weeks to see if what I've read will help.