Early Christmas present

[Garden Peas]

Looks like my December egg is clear.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Quote: Right back at you... hope your others have a sign of life!

 

[thndrdancr]

Oh I am so sorry to hear. You should scold her for getting your hopes all up! Making you trudge thru the snow and cold!

 

[Garden Peas]

Right back at you... hope your others have a sign of life!

You know, eventually he's gonna catch her

or one of the other boys will.... Of course, that could be in March or April

I'm still wondering what prompted her to start laying so early, and how the biology works out -- the timing between male fertility and the laying cycles, and what triggers them each... I've looked a little bit on internet, but no success so far.

It can't just be increasing day length, otherwise the northern birds would lay earlier in the year than the southern birds... and day length doesn't change as much in India, where the birds originated, since it is closer to the equator than almost all of the mainland US.

The only thing I've been able to find so far is that in India, apparently the mating season correlates with the rainy season (I'm interpreting that "rainy season" reference I found to mean monsoon season), and that the mating season apparently varies in different parts of the native ranges. I also found something interesting... that the natural range is only from 900m to 1200m in elevation -- that seems very strange, and I am wondering if that is correct.

Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that in North America and in Australia and in Europe, the pea populations reproduce during the warmer months in each of those locations.

And the other interesting factor is that since peas are naturally a lekking bird, there is a social organization to the reproductive behaviors in the wild... I don't know enough about this, so maybe someone knows more about lekking birds than I do, but I'm really wondering if communications (like maybe the male calling) has a role as a biological trigger for the hens? Anybody know anything about prairie chicken reproduction?

Anyway, these birds originated in a place that doesn't have the day length changes that we have, and certainly doesn't have the temperature variations that we have in their natural range, so I'm not at all convinced that "day length" is the answer....

 

[KsKingBee]

I googled lekking and nothing comes up. What is a lekking? We have Prairie Chickens here on our property, whatcha wanna know?

 

[new 2 pfowl]

lek (lĕk)
n.

1. A location where male animals of the same species gather and often present displays and where females go to select a male to mate with.
2. A group of males gathered at such a place.

intr.v. lekked, lek·king, leks
1. To have a mating system in which males form leks: mammals that lek.
2. To participate in a lek.

 

[Garden Peas]

lek (lĕk)
n.

1. A location where male animals of the same species gather and often present displays and where females go to select a male to mate with.
2. A group of males gathered at such a place.

intr.v. lekked, lek·king, leks
1. To have a mating system in which males form leks: mammals that lek.
2. To participate in a lek.

 

[Garden Peas]

I googled lekking and nothing comes up. What is a lekking? We have Prairie Chickens here on our property, whatcha wanna know?

Crud, I had a response almost written and computer ate it.

Here's the first bit of an interesting article about peafowl and lekking, the link which follows goes to two articles, including this one. I love the description of the peafowl "singles bar"

Here's the link:

http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/BioNB427/READINGS/Sherman1999.pdf

I asked about Prairie Chickens because they are famous for lekking behavior. It ties into this whole question of what signals and/or triggers are involved in the reproductive cycle. All the male prairie chickens show up at the lek site, each with their own little patch of turf, and the hens show up and wander around, deciding which male to mate with. After the lekking period is over, the birds disperse back to wherever they normally hang out. I don't think that the male prairie chickens go home with their dates... I think the mated hens go off by themselves to lay eggs and raise chicks. But I haven't tried to study prairie chickens... They just make the news here due to conservation status.

But what signals the male prairie chickens to all congregate there at the lekking site? How do the females know when to show up? What triggers the onset of laying? What instigates fertility in the males? Are they fertile year round?

These peafowl articles were interesting... but didn't contain the information I was trying to find (unless I missed it in the dense, teensy tiny print

-- there should be an icon for "need my reading glasses"), which is, what brings this all on? How do the birds know when to lek? We "know" informally (and by experience) that peacocks who have dropped their trains are infertile, and they do not become fertile again until their trains are back. We also know there is some variability in when that happens. We know hens tend to lay eggs in the warmer months, and that eggs laid out of season tend not to be fertile. But what prompts the onset of egg laying? Is there a hormonal shift? Is it daylight? Temperature? Rainy season versus dry season? Period of time since last laying? Does the persistent mating call of the male induce a hormonal response? (If the sound of a baby crying can induce a human hormonal response, I can see where the mating call of a male pea could induce a hormonal response in a peahen. Heaven knows, it tends to induce some kind of response in the neighbors

) We know, by experience, that calling males can bring in hens from surprisingly long distances... Is that strictly social activity, bringing them in to the lek? Or is it also a biological trigger which tells the hen to start chunking out eggs? Obviously, they can lay eggs without having mated, so it has to be something other than the act of mating which triggers laying....

Sigh. So many questions, so little time...

 

[Garden Peas]

double crud, it ate the page... here it is again:

 

[enola]

lek - a place for males to gather, and females to show up looking for a mate.......

Sounds sort of like a bar