Does incubation temperature affect sex of developing chick embryo

[deerman]

its so easy , just paint nest boxes blue and pink, sure the hen know what sex the eggs are, so will lay in the proper box. so just set the eggs from pink box.........

 

[Chicken Keith]

Thanks, everybody. I coulda sworn I read something somewhere but at my age, my memory won't swear to it.

A dozen Marans (assorted) eggs are in the bator. Yippee I'm excited. Marans come from a lady in GA known as "Bargain". God bless her.

But when my silkie roos were coming of age, the noise of the crowing was too much for my neighbors (I lived in an HOA) and my wife (Small aside, I lived in a subdivision in Northern Va, on a 100' x 40' plot of land and my neighbors house was 12 feet away on either side of me). The young birds were in a kiddie pool, (dry of course)

in my garage. As they grew older (8 weeks or so) I would let them out under my constant eye, to roam in our yard, which was about 30 x 15 feet small, every day, ...they always had food and clean fresh water. Someone in the HOA ratted me out, and I was informed to get rid of the chickens...I woulda had to anyway, my exit strategy was to wait as long as I could before then. They all went to good homes, and they were show quality roos, and in the haste to get rid of them I gave them away.

Now I'm on 3 acres out in the county of North Alabama (God's country). My next door neighbor has a Buff Orpington Roo named Santana. He names his chickens after rock stars. Santana crows all day -- music to my ears. My neighbor was worried he'd bother me, but I said, no worries my chickens in the future will be crowing back at you.

Ahhh, peace reigns in the neigborhood.

 

[homesteadapps]

Here is a scientific study

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1652/2703.full.html

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
Really? How interesting. So the female embryos are stronger. I know humans are the same. Male babies are weaker and have a higher death rate. In humans, nature produces a higher fertilisation ratio of males to females (something like 104:100) to compensate for the ones that will die in utero and also very soon after birth, in order to produce an end result of equal numbers of males and females...

I started out with 18 duck eggs but after a series of high temperature disasters, I'm left with only 8. It'll be interesting to see what the male/female ratio will turn out to be. If I actually manage to keep them alive through to hatch, that is!

 

[Lordofchickens 86]

i think temp does effect male to female ratio because last sept. it was cooler when i bred and i got more hens. this june i bred in 90-95 degree heat and i got more roosters than hens.

i don't know if i am right but you folks with incubaters try it out we need a study on this. some of you incubate at the low end of temp range and some of you at the high end . i would love to study this but i use natural incubation.

 

[BronwynSW]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a-drop-in-temperature-can-change-the-sex-of-chickens-1238516.html

Just found this article. Interesting.

 

[ajneal30]

One of those articles say that they will change to a hen in lower temps. The other says they will change to a hen in higher temps.

 

[loveourbirds]

I am one of the ones doing sorghum research. but before I get to that im gonna trade a little "old timers" advice. I myself am not an old timer but I love their ideas, and a lot of them are right.

instead of fluctuating temperatures and killing eggs, why not change your ratio by naturally increasing progesterone? typically if you breed a 1-2 year old hen you will get more pullet chicks than if you bred a 2-3 year old hen. this has been proven, you can read about it in Lowell Stromberg's book I think its called "sexing all types of day old fowl".

the math was something like this:
pullet year 57-60% female
hen year 52-56% female
2nd hen year 45-50% pullets

in the same book, he mentioned that someone had performed and experiment with sorghum on smaller birds, and over a period of time achieved a claimed "80% rate of females". he mentions he would like to see more research on this. that book was printed in the 50s or 60s I believe.

I figure someone would have researched it, but I cant find any results positive or negative on the subject.

the experiment was basically to offer hens and roosters sorghum seeds free choice between feedings. the sorghum may cause a rise in progesterone, increasing the number of hens.

I do know that you cant patent natural things, so im wondering if this is a trick that people have forgotten about since it wasn't offered as a nutritional supplement for that reason?

here is a link with some progesterone information. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517215429.htm

 

[loveourbirds]

its so easy , just paint nest boxes blue and pink, sure the hen know what sex the eggs are, so will lay in the proper box. so just set the eggs from pink box.........

my roosters always lay their eggs in the blue boxes,

can a rooster lay an egg that hatches into a hen?

 

[Fowlman4]

This article states that temperature has effected sex in some birds ...
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1652/2703.full