Cockerel to pullet ratio - Why was I so heavy on roos?

[Year of the Rooster]

I've read here that it was suggested that the number of roosters/hens in the flock will affect the gender that the hen decides.

For example, if there is only 1 or 2 roosters in the flock, the hen may be more inclined to make more of the eggs in her clutch roosters to balance out. And vice versa if there were more roosters than hens. Whether or not she actually controls which sex they are or if it's a random selection of her chromosomes, I don't know.

 

[AZKat]

I think that people have more pullets or more cockrels in a given hatch for roughly the same reason that I've got two sons and my cousin has four daughters-sometimes, when you flip a coin, it comes up heads five times in a row.

 

[toxo]

Here's a quote from "Raising Chickens For Eggs and Meat" by Mike Woolnough

He's just finished talking about how he stores his eggs in normal egg boxes kept on the worktop in the kitchen prior to incubating.

He goes on to say;

"It may be purely coincidental, but we have noticed that we get a fairly high percentage of hens from eggs stored this way. When we stored them in a cold outhouse we got quite a lot of boys from the hatch - and once, when we were forced by cicumstances to hatch eggs that had been in the fridge for a few days, we got 100% cockerels!!"

 

[HEChicken]

I'm thinking that if it were really possible to determine or even influence the gender of the resulting chick with temp/humidity, hen/roo ratio or storing the eggs a particular way prior to incubating, that the big hatcheries would already have figured it out (after all, they have much more to gain by pre-determining their hatches than we backyard chicken owners). I can believe that specific birds are more likely to throw pullets than cockerels or vice versa (the same applies in humans - there are some guys are will have all sons or all daughters no matter how many times they try). But for the majority of birds, its probably just luck of the draw.

 

[country freedom]

Quote:
You didn't have a large sample, that's why. Odds change when you only hatch small numbers. I've had a hatch with 6 roos/2 pullets, 6 pullets/1 roo, etc, etc.

If you have alot of eggs from one particular hen, that may change the odds some since sex is determined by the female in avian species. I have one BR hen who has never thrown a cockerel, only pullets. Another one throws mostly cockerels.

I never knew that hens determined the sex of chicks - that's very interesting.

 

[speckledhen]

Every time I post this, I get lots of skeptics, but I assure you, there are numerous sources on the net that support this.

 

[EweSheep]

From my pre vet classes in college, it was known in large mammals including us, it is the MALE that determine the sex factor in their offsprings.

As for poultry I am hoping it is true but I dont have enough evidence to support it nor did it was mentioned much in college.

I had my share of 90 percent cockerals in all my chicks that I hatched this year. UGH!

 

[speckledhen]

Here is one article on it. Avians are not mammals in that they do not nurse their young, so it stands to reason that there are many other differences as well.

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n3/abs/embor459.html


And a blurb from another article:

ZW sex chromosomes
Main article: ZW sex-determination system
The ZW sex-determination system is found in birds and some insects and other organisms. The ZW sex-determination system is reversed compared to the XY system: females have two different kinds of chromosomes (ZW), and males have two of the same kind of chromosomes (ZZ). In the chicken, this was found to be dependent on the expression of DMRT1.[1]​

 

[FluffyColor]

Oh,darn!I have eggs on Day 17.......I saw a ROCKER!

But if everyone is hatching roos,I'm going to have a hard time selling them.

 

[ranchhand]

<<<<<< Please note my title.

And I have just set 42 eggs in the incubator. Anyone want a roo?