Does Lowering The Incubators Temperature Kill The Male Embryos?

[-Flash-]

If you set the incubator's temperature 1 degree lower will it kill all the male embryos? I have heard that if you set the incubator's temperature 1 degree lower it kills all the male embryos, is that true? I'm heading into breeding and if that is true it will be so much easer, and more humane way to kill the boys.

 

[Chookwagn]

If that was the case all hatcheries would do it and buying straight run chicks wouldn't be a thing

 

[NatJ]

Refrigeration is supposed to change the sex of male chicks.

How?

If a male embryo has ZZ sex chromosomes, I do not see any way refrigerating it can make the chromosomes become ZW. Cold temperature is not going to add something that was not there before (W chromosome.)

(And yes, it is very clear that chicken gender is determined by the chromosomes. All those sexlink hybrids are based on it, and they are so common we know it works.)

Only chicks that I've had die mostly are from shipped eggs, or from incubation error from a faulty incubator.

That's great! But if you have no dead embryos, it means you are not doing anything that kills male embryos.

 

[Silexian]

One would think that if this was true or possible. That it would already be common practice amongst the commercial egg farms and hatcheries.

 

[MadamContrary]

There have been studies done on broiler chickens being selectively bred for particular genetic markers and then they lower the incubation temperature to make it more difficult for males to develop properly, so they are then stuck in the egg because they are malformed. I think it's kinder to sell off or even give males away free if you can't handle processing them yourself. I breed for meat, and kindness is at the top of my priority list, what is easy on you is usually hard on the bird.

 

[The Moonshiner]

But I thought this thread and the cooler temp idea was about not producing males.
Which she was just posting about it working. Now it's turned to producing males that are males and males that are females and breeding males to males and producing all males.
This train has jumped the tracks and crashed into an alternate world where's there's no real females.
My head hurts. I'm crawling from this wreckage back to my simple world.

 

[Silexian]

There are plenty of possible things that are still not practical.

In this case, I think some studies have found some difference in the ratio of male and female chicks when they mess with the temperature-- but not enough to be useful in a commercial setting.

In my opinion. It kinda goes along with the pointy and round egg theory. Which my own grandmother swore by and many people on this site do also. Even though the results of my experiments with it. Never proved it true or practical. With decades of experience and having hatched thousands of chicks. I have had incubator temperatures run a little high and a little low. With no dramatic changes to the cockerel, pullet ratio. With more customers not being able to take a gamble on chicks being cockerels. Even if the temperature theory was somewhat practical, even at the farmers market level. I would have all my incubators set and sharing the proper temperature to produce as many pullets as possible. To all that I could. These are my results and my opinions. Others may have different results and are fully entitled to their opinions as well.

 

[NatJ]

I've only had 4 deaths, 1 due suffocation, 2 due to shrink wrapping, 1 unknown.

And no infertile ones or ones that quit early?

In that case, I think your birds have just been producing eggs that mostly hatch females.
The idea of lowering the incubator temperature, or refrigerating eggs, is that it kills some of the male embryos. Dead embryos would show up as eggs that fail to hatch.

 

[nuthatched]

Hogwash

 

[The Moonshiner]

Let me try to follow that since I've now read it like 37 times.
So females are really males and when bred to males only produce males?
Interesting.